Joe Wright might be about the closest we have now to what Gilbert was back in 1966.
Sure. Though I suspect that what Wright would do with Bond would be very different from what Gilbert did. I suspect Wright's approach would be stylish, but ultimately restrained and elegant. From him, I don't think we'd see the indulgence that characterized Gilbert (or Forster, for that matter).
Thing is, some (most?) of the best entries in the franchise were directed by journeyman Bond helmers whose directorial work outside of 007 leaves a lot to be desired (and never won awards).
Most of the best entries
were directed by journeymen. But I suspect that's more or less because the franchise hasn't really tried many other types than the journeyman director very frequently. There's Lewis Gilbert and Marc Forster, but none of the other Bond directors can be really taken seriously as "imaginative talents."
And as much as a few of the journeymen really struck gold, it backfired with John Glen, who was responsible for so much of the blandness and stagnation of the franchise during the 1980s.
A lot of you guys seem to be really hung up on Bond getting a "big name talent" director, like Cuaron, but all of the most consistently popular Bond directors so far (and I am talking 23 films in, people) have been the type of journeymen you are now nasal flaring down upon.
It's not so much "big name talent" I want. I just want an
imaginative director, something that the so-called journeymen, by definition, aren't. I don't really care whether the director's a name or not, or was nominated for such-and-such award, I just want the director to have shown his or herself capable of some real creativity.
In my opinion there's a big difference between a Terence Young and a Roger Spotiswoode.
There undeniably is. Young is an infinitely more elegant director than Spottiswoode.
But Stuart Baird is hardly in the Terence Young mold. He's significantly closer to Spottiswoode than he is to Young or Hunt. He's had two films to his name, and NEMESIS was extraordinarily awful and demonstrated that the man is extraordinarily inept, lacking any real sense of how to handle a camera.