Whether you're invested in Disney films or the further adventures of a certain gentleman spy, this is one conspicuous development.

I’m not here to slag Sam Mendes. The man is a very talented filmmaker, and as I gushed last week, he slyly restored the classic Bond formula to the franchise whilst turning the whole thing upside down. All credit to Mr. Mendes for crafting a bona fide Bond classic in Skyfall.

But Spectre felt like a film made by a Bond fan who, I dunno, got it all out of his system in the previous film? That production has no shortage of things to blame for its end result, but the, er, specter of Spectre lingers over any possibility of Mendes returning to direct Bond 25. What are the odds he’s got another great one in him? Maybe he’s recharged, and has some other great ideas that didn’t make it to the screen in the overcrowded Spectre? Or maybe it’d be doubling down on a losing hand? I don’t like those odds, frankly.

Why are we even talking about this? Because, in a week that seems to have the pieces of Bond 25 ever-so-slowly falling into place, we get news that Mendes has left his latest project, Disney's live-action Pinocchio, a project I prayed would keep him out of 007’s hair for the foreseeable future. Now? Now I don’t know.

And this comes on the heels of that embedded, unverifiable insider (whom I mentioned a while back and ended up in the British tabloids as a result) dropping Mendes’ name in passing a week or so ago. Ugh. Shit.

Maybe he’ll bring Deakins back with him.