After months of speculation, flip-flopping and even threatening to slash his wrists rather than return to the role, actor Daniel Craig has confirmed he will once again play James Bond.
It will be his fifth - and he claims final - turn in the iconic character formerly inhabited by actors such as Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan. (Honourable, but lesser, mentions: Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby.)
The deal has obviously taken some time to finalise - the interminable speculation is proof of that - which does indicate the casting and contractual machinery has been slow to turn behind the scenes.
And that may suggest other options were on the table.
For some time speculation has hinted at actors Tom Hiddleston, Tom Hardy and Idris Elba, with the media tantalising the thought of a black Bond, or even a female Bond.
The push for the latter may have stalled in the wake of the announcement of Jodie Whittaker as the next Doctor Who.
A female Bond has for a long time been an intriguing idea, but a female Bond and a female Who at the same time would risk melting the world's male snowflakes with a single ladylike breath.
Which means that for now Craig, 49, remains James Bond. At least for one more movie.
Reports suggest Bond producer Barbara Broccoli would not budge on her desire to see Craig back in the role, so much so that a $US150 million price tag has been suggested.
For even actor - even one who proclaimed that slashing his wrists was a better fate than playing 007 again - a $US150 million payday is hard to ignore.
Craig made the announcement on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Forget "shaken, not stirred." We're just plain shook. Here's the moment #DanielCraig told @StephenAtHome he's returning to play James Bond. pic.twitter.com/dzDZX3rZDZ??? The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) August 16, 2017
To his credit, he 'fessed up about the slash remark, blaming a bad day.
"There's no point in making excuses about it but it was two days after I'd finished shooting the last movie, I went straight into an interview and someone said would you do another one and I went, no," he says.
"Instead of saying something with style and grace I gave a really stupid answer."
In one sense the idea of wrestling with how a modern day James Bond looks is wholly understandable.
The iconic spy, with his licence to kill and his womanising ways, has at times seemed out of step with the times.
As real-world espionage has evolved into an almost entirely different business, with a different kind of enemy, Bond is still at the bar, drinking a martini, shaken not stirred, and dispensing one-liners to villains with comic book names like Blofeld, Goldfinger and Dr No.
Little wonder then that many have debated whether the franchise has relevance in this day and age.
But to his credit Craig has been a brilliant Bond, a curiously well-fitting modern man, playing a man who isn't so much out of step with the era, but hanging onto a few personality quirks from the one before.
Craig's Bond is properly complex, possessed of the kind of dark edge that makes him intriguing, but still charming enough to evoke Connery or Brosnan, without resorting to the cliches that made those earlier characterisations so apt at the time.
The only worrying news comes in the longer term: Craig may be returning for a fifth Bond movie but, speaking with perhaps more and style and grace than he did before, rules out a sixth.
"I think this is it," he said. "I just want to go out on a high note and I can't wait."
