Marc Forster turned down Bond 23 apparently, and that's from the man himself. So what that means is that the studio were keen for the trilogy of the darker Bond films to continue, and for Bond to continue going after the shadowy financial organisation funding worldwide projects and bring down the next level of bad guys in it.

However it looks like that will never happen and we can consider Quantum of Solace (Filmstalker review) the closure of that chapter. Unless the new director takes the third film in hand.

That's a distinct possibility too. If the studio were that keen for Forster to complete it then we might just see another director being chosen to finish off this trilogy of Bond and the Banks.

Talking to MTV Marc Forster said:

“They asked me if I wanted to...I’ll never say never again, but at this point I would say no.”

It's not stalling either, he sounds like he's completed Bond's journey and that there wasn't going to be a third outing.

“For me, I wanted to take it to a harder and darker place, but now that that journey I’ve gone on has succeeded, I feel like the next one can take it to a bit more humorous place again...

...maybe add a few more girls and a bit more sex – all that kind of stuff...I think that would be interesting.”

Oh dear, you mean return to the old Bond? While those films are great fun and you can revisit them with a lot of nostalgia, I have to recount the words of a friend who has been watching the box set of Blu-rays, Douglas looked at me, made a wincing face, and expressed his surprise at just how groan worthy some of the Bond moments were and the way he treats women and some of the things he says...

He's right, and don't mistake that criticism for saying the films are bad, they aren't. Great entertainment, action, laughs, tension, it's all there, but the character is larger than life and he is so politically incorrect that women's rights groups would be shouting at the studio.

I just don't think that they can turn around Bond so quickly from the darker one we've come to see and like. Okay Quantum of Solace (Filmstalker review) was a drop in quality from Casino Royale (Filmstalker review) and had some shockingly poor aspects to it, but it was still taking Bond on a specific journey, and that was not towards the humorous character who used women for sex in such a flippant manner.

You can't turn the switch so quickly on that character, and if there really is a desire to return to the old Bond then the corner has to be turned rather than the handbrake applied.

However I don't believe for a second that the audience want that. There may be a tug to that old Bond, but if you look at it realistically it just won't work, it's not practical in this day and age. We need to keep the storyline and the continuity going, and whatever we thought of the filming style and the storyline for this last Bond outing, the action sequences, Bond and his interactions with the female lead were very good. We need more of that and not the old Bond.