Skyfall Was Almost The First Movie To Feature Two James Bonds

After over 40 years and 20 movies, the choice of Daniel Craig to play the sixth James Bond was met with some controversy. Craig told Yahoo! Entertainment that while he was bothered by it initially, he grew up a fan of the franchise and had no hard feelings for the immediate hesitation. He said at the time that all he could do was make a good movie and let fans decide, and decide they did. Craig made five films chronicling James Bond's entire timeline, from his promotion to "00" status in "Casino Royale" to his final sacrifice in "No Time to Die."

Craig's James Bond era subverted many of the classic Bond tropes, from beginning "Casino Royale" with the franchise's first black and white intro and also making it the first 007 film to not start with a gun barrel sequence or include Q and Moneypenny. His follow-up film, "Quantum of Solace," picked up right where "Casino Royale" left off. While many of the previous Bond films seemed to be linear stories (at least two Bonds faced the same villain), "Quantum" felt like the first direct sequel.

His third outing, arguably one of the best in the entire franchise, was "Skyfall." While it showed a return to classic Bond with the introduction of Q (Ben Whishaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris), it also did something the series never did before: It killed off Bond's boss, M (Judi Dench). But there was one other thing the film almost did for the first time, which could have changed the franchise forever.

No James Bond actor has ever returned to another Bond actor's movie for even a cameo, but there was talk of having the first 007, Sean Connery, do just that. The third act of "Skyfall" sees Daniel Craig's Bond hide M — who is facing retribution from a former agent (Javier Bardem) she left in China to be tortured — at his family's remote ancestral estate, where they prepare for a last stand along with the estate's caretaker, the grizzled Kincaid (Albert Finney). While Finney played the role brilliantly, he wasn't the only choice director Sam Mendes had in mind.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Mendes said that Connery had been considered for the rold of Kincaid. "There was a definite discussion about that way early on," he revealed. "But I think that's problematic. Because, to me, it becomes too ... it would take you out of the movie. Connery is Bond, and he will not come back as another character. It's like, he's been there. So, it was a very brief flirtation with that thought, but it would never happen because I thought it would distract."

Of course, while Connery making a surprise appearance in the third act of "Skyfall" (the only James Bond movie to make a billion at the box office) would have created an incredible moment of fan service for the Bond audience, it could have created significant ripples throughout the franchise.

Since there have been six different actors playing the same character in the 60 years of James Bond movies, there are only three different ways it works. The first is that they are six separate storylines, with constant reboots. The second possibility is put forth on Reddit by u/jemetib, who theorizes that all James Bond movies are one continuous timeline where all six actors play the same character in different phases of his career.

While some evidence supports this theory, there are plenty of inconsistencies. In "Skyfall," when Bond returns to speak to M, she comments that he knows how the game is played because he has played it long enough. This implies that a slew of missions occurred between Daniel Craig's second and third outings, taking him from rookie to veteran. What's inconsistent is that Judi Dench was also Bond's boss in the Pierce Brosnan era and three of five of the Craig films. If Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) takes over for Dench and is there until his death, it doesn't leave room for the other Ms. Connery's appearance in "Skyfall" in either of these theories is little more than fan service.

The last possibility is that James Bond is a code name passed down from agent to agent over the years. That makes it easier to watch the films in order and not worry too much about continuity. If this is the case, Connery's appearance in "Skyfall" is much more than fan service. It confirms the theory as canon, as he would have been a retired 007, living at the estate for the remainder of his years and helping the new Bond with one last mission. 

In 1996, Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery starred in "The Rock," in which Cage's special agent Stanley Goodspeed must team with a jailed former MI6 agent named John Mason (Sean Connery) to break into the prison on Alcatraz Island and stop a rogue Marine Corps unit from launching nerve gas rockets at San Francisco. 

Reddit u/thearn4 theorized that Mason was, in reality, an imprisoned James Bond. In the film, F.B.I. Director Womack (John Spencer) states that Mason was incarcerated at Alcatraz in 1962 and escaped in 1963. That means that between his missions in "Dr. No" and "From Russia with Love," he spent time in Alcatraz before escaping, and was presumably picked up again after his final outing as James Bond in 1971, spending his time in maximum security prisons in the United States until 1996. After the events on Alcatraz, Goodspeed covers for him and tells the U.S. government that Mason has died, allowing him to disappear.

The Reddit thread continues to debate the theory, and there is some supporting evidence: the knowledge that MI6 disavows all captured agents, Mason states he is part of British Intelligence, and the fact that John Patrick Mason doesn't officially exist. Could this have been the actual ending of Sean Connery's James Bond? Did he return to his homeland to be secreted away in the Bond estate? Is the estate reserved specifically for retired agents carrying the Bond name? In the end, all this lends credibility to Sam Mendes' opinion that his appearance would have been a distraction in "Skyfall."