Mendes is back: Sam dramatically decides to return as director for the next James Bond movie after initially refusing offer



Sam Mendes the Oscar winning director who turned Skyfall into one of cinema's biggest franchise hits in years has dramatically decided to return to make the next Bond film after initially withdrawing from contention.



After the phenomenal success of Skyfall the next 007 drama was his for the asking. But he turned it down.



Bond 24 as the untitled project is known had his name on it but he said he was too busy.



Winning formula: Sam Mendes, who worked on latest Bond movie Skyfall, has dramatically returned to the franchise and is in talks to helm the next movie as well

All kinds of names then came into the frame.



Just two weeks ago I was told Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson were in preliminary talks with Batman film-maker Chris Nolan.They well may have talked but he's not doing it. Mendes is.



Mendes was urged to reconsider, I'm told, by Broccoli, Wilson and Bond himself, Daniel Craig.



They told Mendes that he was the one that they wanted and Mendes went off and thought it through.

Teaming up: Sam Mendes has reportedly made a dramatic return to the Bond franchise, agreeing to helm the next movie after originally turning it down

His reason for not doing it was the major theatre commitments of directing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory now in preview at the Theatre Royal ,Drury Lane and King Lear with Simon Russell Beale at the National Theatre.



When I spoke to him a few weeks ago during rehearsals for Chocolate Factory he told me that he couldn't work on his stage shows during the day and do pre-production on Bond at night.



'It's impossible to do and not fair to either party', Mendes told the Daily Mail.

Back in the game: Mendes was originally slated to direct the as yet untitled Bond 24 but refused on the grounds of his busy schedule, but it seems he's now made room for it

He added that he would consider, however, doing 'a Bond in the future'.



Well, that future has come around pretty quickly.



The situation now is that the Bond family has told Mendes they will wait until all his theatre projects are out of the way and then he can commit to Bond 24 full-time. Mendes, unofficially, has agreed.



No word yet on whether he will do Bond 25 as well. Both are being written by John Logan who wrote Skyfall, the most successful 007 film in its 50-year history.



I was told Mendes was back in talks just as my friends at Deadline Hollywood broke the news tonight



Sources close to the 007 production confirmed to me tonight that 'talks have re-opened' with Mendes to make the next Bond picture.



