Good news for Tattoo fans but bad news for Bond

British actor Daniel Craig is reported to have finalised his deal to play journalist Mikael Blomkvist in an English-language remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its two mooted sequels. But the news is a blow to James Bond fans because it confirms that they might have to wait some time  – if it not forever - for the next 007 film.

Craig is currently shooting the Spielberg-produced Cowboys and Aliens with Harrison Ford. When that wraps this autumn, he would normally have been expected to get back to work as Ian Fleming's super-cool agent.

But, according to Hollywood news site Deadline.com, Craig will instead start work on the first of the Girl… films, with another two adaptations of Stieg Larsson's Swedish detective trilogy to follow if the first one is a hit.

Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson, the half-brother-and-sister custodians of 007's legacy, have given Craig permission to sign the deal to film all three episodes, leading Bond fans to conclude that they can't be planning to start work on the next film – working title Bond 23 – for several years.

This lends support to what some insiders had already suspected. With the MGM studio, which owns the rights to Bond, in deep financial trouble, Wilson and Broccoli announced in April that production had been suspended on Bond 23 "indefinitely". Actor Craig and first-time Bond director Sam Mendes were both stood down.

MGM, once a Hollywood giant, is now almost $4bn in debt. Its woes stem largely from a slump over the past three years in DVD sales. With its 4,000-film library as security, the company took on a great deal of debt in 2004. Unfortunately, the cash cow has since dried up: MGM's sales of DVDs have halved in the past 12 months from $500m to $250m.

Last year the studio failed to meet its debt repayments and lenders took control. Now they are trying to find a buyer for the studio. In the meantime, several projects - including a live-action version of The Hobbit, a remake of Robocop and another of Red Dawn - have all ground to a halt, or been cancelled. Bond 23, too, has lost its steam.

According to a former MGM insider who spoke to the Reuters news agency, Wilson and Broccoli are "completely panicked that if they go five, six years without a Bond movie, it'll be over". He added: "They don't want to kill the golden goose."

But many refuse to believe the franchise could be over. Bond fan and director of the Angelina Jolie espionage thriller Salt, Philip Noyce, 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."

Never say never again. ·