‘No more Bond’ for Mendes

LONDON: Director Sam Mendes has revealed he won’t be directing any more Bond movies after the upcoming “Spectre,” Mirror reports.

“I said no to the last one and then ended up doing it, and was pilloried by all my friends,” he said. “But I do think this is probably it.”
Mendes directed 2012’s “Skyfall” and the forthcoming “Spectre.”
“I don’t think I could go down that road again,” he said. “You do have to put everything else on hold.”
Spectre, in which Daniel Craig will make his fourth appearance as the MI6 agent, will come out on Oct. 26 in the UK and Nov. 6 in the US.
“Spectre” and “Skyfall” took a total of five years to make, he told BBC.
“It feels almost, even though we’ve just finished shooting it, like one big experience and it was a fantastic life-changing thing,” he said. But he added he did not think he could go through it again.
“It really is more a lifestyle choice than a job,” he said.
Mendes made his name in theater, and directed a new stage production of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in between making the Bond films. But shooting a Bond movie is “pretty much all encompassing,” he explained.
“I’m happiest rehearsing a play or editing a movie, and when I’ve finished editing a movie I generally want to be back in a theater environment again,” he said.