Scott Z. Burns Hired To Rewrite 'Bond 25' For Director Cary Fukunaga [Exclusive]
Sources close to the project tell us that
Scott Z. Burns, the writer of “
The Bourne Ultimatum,” “
Contagion,”
Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming heavyweight A-list ensemble drama “
The Laundromat” and Academy Award-winning producer of “
An Inconvenient Truth,” has been hired to rewrite the ‘Bond 25’ script by
Neal Purvis and
Robert Wade. It’s an overhaul and I won’t be surprised if Burns is ultimately given first screenplay credit.
Burns, like
Tony Gilroy and
Christopher McQuarrie, is known as one of the top emergency rescue script doctors in Hollywood. If your script is hemorrhaging, he’s one of the first people you call. He’s done uncredited fix-it work on “
Ocean’s 12” and “
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” to name just a couple, and top-shelf filmmakers and producers have him on speed dial.
Boyle
reportedly clashed with Daniel Craig, there were rumors that Boyle wanted to kill Bond in the end (Craig is leaving after this) and this was a bone of contention. Having heard about the ending of the current, non-Burns version of the script (which I can’t reveal), I can say there’s likely some truth to that rumor. It was previously reported that
Paul Haggis did rewrite work following Boyle’s exit, but based on my intel, it doesn’t sound like it’s being used.