I don't believe that anyone really thinks James Bond is finished, I certainly don't, and unlike other franchises this is one that is bigger than the actor, director and even the studio, we've seen that proven before in the past, so nothing's different now with MGM struggling to make one.

So while the new James Bond videogame is being released it's no surprise that some big names are coming out to remind us all that the franchise is far from dead, whatever happens with MGM.

While James Bond 007: Blood Stone was being released with the current James Bond of Daniel Craig voicing the character, a few strong comments were made by some famous people.

Michael G. Wilson, the producer of the series for some time, said:

"I wish we were launching a movie"

According to The Hollywood Reporter that comment was made as part of his speech to the audience for the launch and was greeted with laughter from the audience.

The comment may have been made with a little wry joke, but it harbours a little frustration I'm sure. We're seeing a strong resurgence from the Bond franchise with the Daniel Craig Bond and they should be capitalising on it.

However, at the same time, they were set to fumble things with this third Craig Bond. While Casino Royale (Filmstalker review) did a superb job of kicking off a three part story with the new Bond, Quantum of Solace (Filmstalker review) struggled and it did mess things up in the final act of the film, particularly with the final sequences.

With that the direction of the third film seemed to have been set, the blame was put firmly at the continuing of this three film storyline, and so the third film was going to drop this and go alone with something new, just ignoring this idea of the Quantum organisation that the first two films had built up.

To me this was the wrong direction, the blame was being firmly dropped in the wrong place, and the decision for change was the wrong one entirely. If they had continued and made the third film, moving away from the direction of the first three, we could well have seen the third film being the weakest, and a further decline in the strong resurgence.

So perhaps this enforced pause is a good thing and gives everyone behind the film the chance to take a breath and look at what really went wrong with the Bond franchise.

Phillip Noyce was another who was certain the franchise will continue and said:

"It's a business problem that will be solved, and then Bond will be back...There's still a lot of hunger out there for the Bond story."

In the same story we hear a comment from an alleged MGM insider who said:

"They're completely panicked that if they go five, six years without a Bond movie, it'll be over...They don't want to kill the golden goose."

You know that's all very well for them to say that, but they've made a clear choice. Rather than sell the financial people behind MGM who are keeping the company going the idea of doing more Bond films to bring in money, they've sold them on the idea of doing two Hobbit films, films which need much more production work than a Bond film, that's for sure.

So are they really that scared? Do MGM really think that this is their golden goose when they've handed the title of the saviour of MGM to the Hobbit films?

Bruce Feirstein is a screenwriter who has written the story for some of the Bond films and the current videogame Blood Stone, and he summed everything up well. He points out that there was a six year gap between Timothy Dalton's Bond and Pierce Brosnan's, and that didn't serve as a hindrance for Bond, in fact it was a huge positive.

"I'm not worried about 007. There's a line at the end of every movie which we used in the video game: It's that James Bond will return. ... It's been true for 50 years. A hiccup like what's going on at MGM is not going to change that."

I agree. Everything in Bond's life has come and go, and studios are no different, although MGM has been a strong factor with the franchise, it's surely going to be snapped up by another company if MGM do have serious trouble.

Will Bond continue?