No Time To Die Will Screen At The Zurich Film Festival, The First For A Bond Movie

Daniel Craig's suffering is coming one step closer to finally ending. It almost feels like another lifetime ago now, but the actor once made waves with some hilariously choice comments about his famous Bond role in the immediate aftermath of "Spectre," making it sound like he was long past ready to take the holster and finely appareled suits and hang them up for good. The universe has a cruel sense of humor, however, turning this obviously exaggerated running joke into a waking nightmare as "No Time to Die" has undergone a series of delays and postponements thanks to the ongoing pandemic. 

But there might just be some light on the horizon now. Craig's last go-around as Bond is still scheduled for a release almost exactly a month from now and, for the first time ever for a Bond movie, "No Time to Die" will be among the official selection of films to screen at a film festival; in this case, the Zurich Film Festival.

It's hard to believe that there could still be any franchise firsts for one that's endured for over 50 years at this point, but then again who could ever forget the backlash that accompanied Daniel Craig's initial casting as (gasp!) the first blonde James Bond. Well, here we are over 15 years later and the franchise is still making history. As reported by Deadline, Zurich Film Festival artistic director Christian Jungen had this to say about it:

"We are extremely pleased to be one of the first in the world to show our audience the most recent Bond adventure. We fought for months to get this premiere and had to negotiate every last detail with the distribution company Universal. Never before has James Bond been in the official selection of a film festival. I am further pleased that the ZFF has succeeded in this coup as it sends out a powerful signal that highlights the importance of cinema. The industry has waited more eagerly for this movie than any other."

What might've sounded like gross hyperbole in any other context actually rings true now. "No Time to Die" was the very first film to delay its release at the onset of the pandemic, becoming the first domino to fall in a Rube-Goldberg machine that's unfortunately still going steady all these months later. That extra unanticipated wait, combined with the novelty of serving as Craig's official goodbye to the legendary role, has turned "No Time to Die" into even more of a must-see event.

Directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga and starring Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz and Ralph Fiennes, "No Time to Die" is currently set for a theatrical release on September 30, 2021 in the U.K. and October 8, 2021 here in the United States.