The upcoming James Bond film No Time to Die might skip theaters and go straight to streaming. The 25th movie in the Bond series and Daniel Craig's last run as 007, No Time to Die has been one of the most highly anticipated movies of the year. Initially scheduled for release back in April, the film was one of the first blockbusters delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, the film has faced multiple release date delays, most recently being pushed from November 2020 to April 2021 likely after MGM realized the prolonged impact the coronavirus will continue to have on theaters.

Since the spring, many studios have followed MGM's lead, pushing their major film release dates back to late 2020 or 2021. Christopher Nolan's Tenet has so far been the only blockbuster film to hit the big screen since the spring in an attempt to bring audiences back to theaters, but it did not perform nearly as well as hoped in the U.S. market. Theater chains have begun to re-close their doors recently, while AMC has revealed to be in danger of running out of money by the end of the year. Back in March at the start of the pandemic when all theaters first shut down, Universal Pictures pivoted to streaming with The Invisible Man and Emma. What was expected to be one of the biggest movies of 2020, Mulan, made waves when it skipped theaters and was sent straight to Disney+ in September. Hamilton had a similar release in July and, in December, Pixar's Soul will also release digitally, forgoing a theatrical release. With theaters suffering and films being sent straight to streaming, there's speculation that No Time to Die will eventually follow suit.

MGM is likely under pressure to skip theaters and sell No Time to Die to the highest bidder, which could be Netflix or Apple TV+. According to Binged, the streaming platforms are trying to purchase the film for extremely large amounts of money. No Time to Die reportedly has a production budget of $250 million, so the streaming bids would have to be exceptionally high to consider skipping a theatrical release.


Apple TV+ previously made this move when it purchased Tom Hanks' Greyhound earlier this year after it was delayed from theaters indefinitely due to the pandemic. Paramount Pictures recently sold the long-awaited Eddie Murphy sequel Coming 2 America to Amazon Studios to stream on Prime Video in December in a reported $125 million deal.

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly taken its toll on the movie industry. No Time to Die being sent straight to streaming could be fatal to theaters. However, as unpredictable as this year has been, there are no promises that all theaters will be business as usual by April 2021. Fans have been eagerly awaiting Craig's last film as Bond, and while they would lose the theater experience, it seems likely that MGM will end up being tempted to sell to one of the platforms.