Mild Spoilers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens – stop reading if you haven’t seen the film and don’t wish to know more.
James Bond star Daniel Craig has a cameo appearance in the latest Star Wars film, Episode 7: The Force Awakens, after reports emerged last weekend confirming that Craig had snapped up a brief appearance in the record breaking seventh film in the series.
The Bond actor’s brief turn is one of many reported cameos in the highly anticipated film which is a return to the fun roller coaster ride that many fans of the original trilogy will remember from their youth.
Craig had vehemently denied the rumoured appearance in July, despite Star Wars fan Simon Pegg, who also appears in the film, reportedly mentioning it at the time in The Sun newspaper.
Both Spectre and The Force Awakens were shooting at Pinewood Studios in Britain at roughly the same time last year so it would have been relatively easy for scenes to have been shot featuring 007 if granted by director JJ Abrams.
Part of The Force Awakens’ charm has been the moments of humour spread throughout the film and Craig’s cameo is certainly one to bring a smile to the face of Star Wars fans even if his face is obscured under a helmet the whole time and his voice is digitally altered.
Bond fans may take the strenuous denial of his role in Star Wars as a hint that Craig will indeed be fulfilling his obligation to appear in a fifth and final Bond film despite his recent comments about wanting to quit the series after Spectre.
Despite opening with a massive global audience, The Force Awakens scored a huge £34m four-day opening weekend box office take in Britain and Ireland but could not beat Spectre’s British and Irish opening weekend record of £41m although the Bond film’s opening ‘weekend’ started on the Monday before.
Disney will be delighted with ticket sales of $529m (£355m) globally, beating the $525m (£352m) set by Jurassic World in June.
The Force Awakens is on track to become the biggest selling movie of all time and the franchise has certainly re-awakened with the promise of two more films in the latest trilogy to come and other one-off movies in a release schedule that has been mapped out for years to come.