No Time to Die is the sixth Bond movie and Daniel Craig was in the role until this year.
After 16 years, five films and one questionable pink tux, Daniel Craig's tenure as James Bond sadly came to an end earlier this year.
We don't know what a Quantum of Solace is, but we know that Craig delivered some of the best films in the franchise, and he's going to be a tough act to follow.
It's an important casting decision. Picking the right actor for a role is a big deal.
Mark O'Connell, author of Catching Bullets: Memoirs of a Bond Fan, says that a new Bond is not just a red-carpet suit and timepiece endorsement arm. He must be a movie star, an ambassador for the series and cinema, a media diplomat, an anointed son of British culture and the face of a billion-dollarecosystem of products and endorsements.
He must be instantly recognisable as James Bond. He must be good looking, able to hold the camera and dominate cinema screens.
What can you remember?
O'Connell notes that any new Bond actor would probably want to pay homage to those who have come before him, but he will bring his own qualities to the role. He doesn't need to be a leader. When Daniel Craig got the role, he wasn't yet. He was a leading man in waiting, something Barbara Broccoli had to instill in him over a year or so of conversation about taking on the Bond baton.
Who could it be?
Several candidates have had their names mentioned recently.
Tom Hardy is one of the favorites to take over.
One thing we do know is that the next Bond will be another man. Barbara Broccoli said in 2020 that James Bond is male.
I believe we should create strong female characters. I'm not interested in having a woman play a male character. I think women are more interesting than that.
With that in mind, things don't get much more masculine than Tom Hardy, an actor who used to be tough on screen and has starred in Venom, Mad Max:Fury Road and Dunkirk.
It's easy to understand why the bookies have considered him the favourite for some time. He told Magic that he would love to play Bond with Christopher Nolan. It would be great.
He could have missed the boat now that he's 44. This is a role that Daniel Craig played for 15 years. If he kept it for that long, he would push 60.
The issue of age is one that could be a barrier for the 49-year-old, who was the favourite to take over the role for a solid decade after his hugely popular performance in The Wire.
The Duke of Hastings is played by Rege-Jean Page in Bridgerton.
Cars, ladies, martinis. Who wants to do that? "It sounds terrible," he joked. The actor acknowledged that he might be too old to take it on.
Both Connery and Lazenby were just 30 when they got the job. It is hard to play Bond with all the expectations of action cinema. It is a younger agent's game.
Which younger agents are in the frame? The Bridgerton star looked like he was auditioning for a role in a James Bond movie when he stepped on a red carpet this year. You can't argue with anyone who rocks a tuxedo as well as him, and former 007 Pierce Brosnan has said he'd make a wonderful Bond.
Page has been keeping a level head about the rumour. He told The Tonight Show that if you are a Brit, and you do something well, people will start saying the "B" word. It's like a merit award.
"I'm very, very happy to have the badges," he said. I'm happy to be in a group of people who have the badges. But it's a sign.
Richard Madden is an actor who could be in the running because of his role in the show, which required him to wear a tuxedo, reverse a car out of gunfire and know his way around a weapon.
James Bond will remain a male character despite Lashana Lynch taking over the title in No Time to Die.
Sean Connery was the first actor to play James Bond in the film series, and it's only right that producers consider some new Scottish talent.
Madden has also played down the speculation. He told the magazine that he was flattered to be mentioned in relation to Bond, but that everyone just loves the rumour mill on that topic. I'm the current one. There will be a different one next week.
JamesNorton told the Evening Standard: "Bond's such an icon and means so much to so many so there's an inevitable amount of speculation." But that is just speculation. It was very flattering.
Several of these actors are favorites with the bookies. That might sound like a good thing, but producers have often chosen someone far less obvious in the past.
The 'bookies favourite' headlines never once mentioned a guy called Daniel Craig as they obsessed over Clive Owen because he once wore a tuxedo after the final Bond film, Die Another Day.
The 'bookies favourite' is always the new television show, and it is usually a good looking actor who is launching it. He says that all the recent rumors of the last few years are about Sunday night TV drama. James Bond has never been on a Sunday night.
Could that affect the chances of some of the most well-known TV drama stars, like Tom Hiddleston and Cillian Murphy? We wouldn't bet against them.
Tom Hopper became a favourite with the bookies.
Which raises the question, who is a less obvious choice?
You may not have heard of Tom Hopper before, but he experienced a surge of interest and bookie activity in October despite being considered a firm outsider.
He had odds of 100-1 to be the next Bond. There were rumors that he was on a list compiled by Broccoli.
"It looks like we've been caught on the hop here," said William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams at the time. Tom Hopper was completely off our radar, but now he is on it. He is almost certainly on the list.
The 36-year-old has had roles in TV series such as Casualty, Doctors and The Umbrella Academy, and appeared alongside Amy Schumer in I Feel Pretty.
Richard Madden is best known for his role in the show Bodyguard.
Jamie Dornan's work has ranged from Fifty Shades of Grey to a potentially Oscar-nominated performance in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast. Don't think he's out of the race.
Henry Golding, the star of Crazy Rich Asians, and Clive Standen, the star of TV series Taken, have also been mentioned.
Henry Cavill was considered the runner-up to Daniel Craig for the role of Bond last time around.
It's possible that his odds are better this time because he would have been too young for the role back then.
It's all up in the air. We will see what happens. In 2020, I would love to play Bond, it would be very exciting, I said.
"I have always said the next Bond will be someone we all know, but no one thought of mentioning," O'Connell said.
The names I would shake into the martini were Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Harris Dickinson, George Mackay, Matt Smith, and Paul Mescal.
There is only one thing we can be certain of. At the end of the No Time to Die credits, viewers were told that James Bond would return.
