James Bond has had a pretty rough year. With the release of No Time to Die delayed approximately 700 times in the last twelve months (leaving it open to an inevitable slew of 'No Time to Release' jokes), fans have started to wonder if they'll ever see the film. And now, it seems 007 is about to face his most formidable villain yet – his sponsors.
Bond films aren't exactly subtle about product placement, which is causing a rather unique problem for No Time To Die's featured brands. With every passing month, it becomes less likely that the inevitable close-ups will reveal Daniel Craig to be holding one of the best camera phones of this year, or even last year.
Bond films are known for their product placement (Image credit: MGM)
According to CinemaBlend, sponsors are concerned that because the film was shot in 2019, Bond and co. will be carrying gadgets that have already been out for ages (because exploding pens are just so last year). "That isn’t really the point of these deals," an anonymous source explains. "The big tech firms want the stars to have all the new up-and-coming products to help promote them and sell them to fans. It means some of the scenes are going to have to be very carefully edited to bring things up to date."
It sounds like the producers might even be forced to carry out re-shoots in order to retroactively insert the latest tech into the film. Maybe they can give Bond a brand new rollable smartphone. Or maybe they can simply upgrade him from whatever Nokia device he's contractually obliged to lumber around – the Nokia 8.3 5G was set to be featured – to the inconspicuous (read: spy-ready) iPhone 12 mini.
Still, with the right VFX tools, perhaps the film's editors will be able to seamlessly integrate new tech using CGI. Time will tell – but until then, you can take a quantum of solace in the fact that right now, you probably have a better phone than James Bond. And if you don't, check out today's best iPhone 12 deals available from Q-Branch below.
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Daniel John is Design Editor at Creative Bloq. He reports on the worlds of design, branding and lifestyle tech, and has covered several industry events including Milan Design Week, OFFF Barcelona and Adobe Max in Los Angeles.
