While No Time To Die featured the longest runtime of any James Bond adventure so far, Bond 26 needs to revise this annoying trend with a shorter, sharper storyline. The James Bond franchise has never been noted for its brevity. Where many blockbuster franchises such as the MCU have become more and more confident about adding another few minutes to their runtimes with each new outing, the suave superspy’s screen adventures have run long ever since the series began in the early 60s.
Even as far back as 1969, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service ran for 2 hours and 20 minutes, matching the runtime of many modern spy thrillers. However, this trend was taken too far by 2021’s long-delayed No Time To Die. As if trying to justify the movie’s many release date delays, No Time To Die clocked in at a massive 2 hours and 43 minutes. In fact, with the exception of 2008's Quantum of Solace, every Craig-era Bond movie ran comfortably over the 2 hours and 20-minute benchmark.
There is an argument to be made that No Time To Die’s gargantuan runtime worked in favor of the dramatic swan song, since it was the end of Daniel Craig’s tenure as 007 and had a lot to add to the franchise. However, Bond’s next outing needs to curb this trend and go back to a tighter, faster pace. Bond 26 needs to bring back a lot of what made the series more light-hearted and fun pre-Craig, and shortening the runtime of the movie would actually be a first for the long-running franchise. Bond’s adventures have always strayed toward the longer end of the blockbuster runtime spectrum, which is all the more reason that Bond 26 should shock viewers by being the fastest and punchiest offering from the franchise so far.
As the first movie in the franchise to kill off an iteration of Bond, No Time To Die was always going to be an exception to the rule. The movie used its lengthy runtime well, wrapping up subplots, juggling various villains, and eventually packing a real emotional punch. Everything from Q’s LGBTQ confirmation to the introduction of Ana De Armas’ Paloma could have done with more screen time, proving that No Time To Die did plenty to earn its almost three-hour length. Even Christoph Waltz’s campy villain Blofeld, a major figure of the 007 franchise, was underused, but that is understandable when the movie already ran so long and had to wrap up Safin’s story, Madeleine’s relationship to 007, and make Bond’s death emotionally resonant. However, none of this applies for Bond 26, meaning it is all the more important for the next movie in the franchise to buck this trend.
Although the 2006 hit ran long at 2 hours 24 minutes, it’s important to note that Craig’s acclaimed Bond debut Casino Royale was not an outlier in the Bond franchise in terms of length. That is around the same runtime that both Licence to Kill and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service had despite the three movies being released decades apart, and Casino Royale reflects the general trend for the Bond franchise’s runtime. As a rule, Bond adventures never clocked in shy of the two-hour mark, save for Quantum of Solace’s truncated runtime—and that Bond outing had major issues that no amount of cutting could resolve. Outside of that critical flop, the series has never had a movie run less than 2 hours since 1967’s You Only Live Twice—and even that early Bond outing was only four minutes shy of that mark.
In 2009, the average length of the year’s top 10 biggest movies was 115 minutes. By 2019, this number had gradually ballooned to 125 minutes. If Bond keeps up with this trend as one of few franchises that have always boasted a lengthy runtime, it will spill into the three-hour mark. No one wants a Bond movie that runs as long as a modest miniseries, and the prospect of a lighter, funnier iteration of Bond whose movies drag on for over two and a half hours sounds exhausting. Bond 26 needs to make the franchise fun again after the darkness of Craig’s grounded movies, and the best way to do this would be to make an unprecedented for the franchise by releasing a Bond adventure that wraps up within 100 minutes. This taut time limit would surprise longtime fans of the series, prove that this new Bond isn’t like his predecessors, and give viewers a reason to see the punchy adventure on the big screen instead of waiting until they can stream the spy’s next lengthy adventure from the comfort of their home.
As proven by the success of Venom 2 (starring potential Bond Tom Hardy), audiences are interested in briefer blockbusters. While Bond has never been concerned about keeping runtimes tight since the franchise's inception, the changeover between actors is the perfect chance for the series to turn a new leaf and tell a shorter story than ever before. It has never been easy for transitional Bond movies to set up a new take on the uber-famous character, but the most successful changeovers in the franchise have been marked by a total tonal transformation of the series. Much like Goldeneye immediately established that Brosnan’s Bond as a quippy, self-aware, ironic take on 007 and drastically lightened the tone of Dalton’s grittier outings, Casino Royale made it clear from the movie’s opening sequence onwards that the era of winking 007 was over and fans were in for a brutal, post-Bourne take on the spy.
Since the franchise’s producers vetoed a James Bond TV show, the best way for Bond 26 to stand out in a crowded blockbuster marketplace is to repeat this trick and offer something that the series has never provided before. By telling a tight standalone adventure in less than 100 minutes, Bond 26 can offer something completely antithetical to No Time To Die’s operatic, super-sized story. Bond 26 can be fun, fast-paced, and over shortly after No Time To Die reached its halfway point, effectively reshaping what viewers expect from the James Bond franchise going forward and avoiding a dragging, overlong story in the process.
