ISLAMABAD-They’ve always been licensed to make a killing. But the producers of No Time To Die, 007’s 25th outing, due for release next April, have now excelled themselves. Despite taking £700 million at the box office for the last Bond film Spectre, they have, I can disclose, taken advantage of the furlough scheme to create their latest blockbuster. The details are buried away in the latest accounts reported by B25 Limited, a subsidiary of EON Productions, the parent company co-owned by Barbara Broccoli. But it requires the diligence of a Money penny to spot the figures. ‘Government grants totalling £95,487 have been received,’
B25 Limited acknowledges, ‘during the period under the job retention scheme . . . in relation to furlough costs for payroll staff in March to June 2020’. The company records that there were 25 on the payroll at the time, so each would have received £3,819 — barely a tip from 007 after a good night in the casino, and scarcely a blip on what is the most expensive Bond film ever. With the cast ricocheting from Jamaica to Norway, and from Italy to the Faroe Islands, via London’s Pinewood Studios, No Time To Die has notched up costs of £213 million. No less than £1 million of this is said to have gone to Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge as a reward for her contribution to the script.