Sam Mendes Doubts Making Another James Bond Movie & Says Producers Want Directors “Who Are More Controllable”

Sam Mendes doubts he will director another James Bond movie after helming 2012’s Skyfall and 2015’s Spectre.

In HBO’s The Franchise, the filmmaker spoofs the process of making big-budget franchises and, in a new interview, explains why he doesn’t think he’ll direct another James Bond film.

“They don’t want people who have a big track record,” Mendes said in an interview with Inverse. “They want slightly more malleable people who are earlier in their career who perhaps are going to use it as a stepping stone, and who are more controllable by the studio.”

Although Mendes noted to “never say never,” he adds, “but I would doubt it. It was very good for me at that moment in my life. I felt like it shot me out of some old habits. It made me think on a bigger scale. It made me use different parts of my brain. You have to have a lot of energy.”

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Having experience working on a big-budget franchise, Mendes knows the environment a director has to work in.

“You’re so used as a director to being the initiator, being the person who’s there on the ground floor,” he said. “To walk in and to have an actor who’s played the role twice before and knows it better than you do, and people who know the world better than you do, you have to try and play catch up. That’s a very odd place to put yourself as a director.”