Conclave Director Edward Berger on Whether He’d Like to Direct the Next James Bond Movie

Edward Berger is having a wonderful, extended moment in cinema. Despite walking across what appeared to be moviemaking holy ground when he remade—or more accurately reinterpreted—All Quiet on the Western Front in 2022, he came out on the other side with a gut-punch of a film which became one of the rare instances where a foreign-language movie was nominated by the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Berger for Best Adapted Screenplay. Now his follow-up arrives this weekend as one of the most buzzed about pictures of the fall, a surprisingly tense and even explosive thriller set in the bowels of the Vatican: Conclave.

Yet time and again whispers about an entirely different kind of movie are what follows his steps—whispers that he is possibly being eyed by producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to helm the next James Bond picture. The intel dates back to August when The Telegraph reported that Eon Productions was allegedly considering Berger as a top pick for lensing the first Bond not played by Daniel Craig in 20 years. And while Berger has since denied there have been any discussions between himself and the 007 producers, the story lingers in the press, including admittedly with us. Which is why when we sat down with Berger earlier this week to discuss the excellent Conclave, we could not resist asking that, if the opportunity arose, would he be interested in directing 007?

“Who isn’t, you know?” the German filmmaker says with a slight smile. “Bond, I grew up with it. He’s an idol. Those movies, I watched them diligently from back to front, of course I would be. But whether I would ever be in the discussion list, I have no idea. There really is no discussion, there is no future for me in it at the moment. Barbara Broccoli and Michael [G. Wilson] are sort of the keepers of that holy grail, and they will make the right decision for whatever they want to do, and I think that’s the main thing.”

While Berger is leaving the door open, he also notes that the idea of doing a 007 picture is currently “so far away from me” that he cannot seriously think about the superspy as being on his horizon.

Be that as it may, Berger is certainly keeping himself busy. Whereas his previous film wowed international audiences with its sparse vision of a world at war—and barely a line of dialogue to accompany the hell on the western front—his next movie essentially reverses the concept of what can be thrilling by following a group of old men in the Vatican using battalions of words, rumors, and innuendo to destroy one another, all in the quest of attaining the papal throne.

“It’s kind of the opposite [of my last movie],” Berger muses. “I want to scratch an itch that I don’t know how to scratch with a movie. Just imagine [All Quiet] as a movie that’s like a conversation you’ve been having for five years, talking about the same thing, with yourself. You’re trying to get to the bottom of it, and making this. And at some point, you feel like, ‘I want to stop that conversation, I’m sick of it.’ I want to do the opposite. I want to talk about something that I don’t know how to do, that I feel insecure about, that I want to avoid. Questions that I want answers for, and a place where I can go to work and feel like I’m learning and I’m a student, and I’m on unsure ground and trying to find my footing, trying to find answers.”

It’s a provocative ambition. And, just coincidentally, we might point out that Bond is also pretty far removed from the intrigues of the Vatican if one is looking for that next challenge….

Conclave is in limited release now. Come back soon for more of our conversation about that movie with Edward Berger.