I think that this .... well, this is probably the single best choice they could have made. I will explain-
There are only a handful of truly great directors. Ones that (IMO) you can count on not just to make movies that are consistently good, but also to often make great ... for lack of a better term ... cinema. I think we know most of the names.
But ... most of the truly great directors either wouldn't do a Bond film, or they have such signature styles that even if they were going to do a Bond film ... it could not work. Look, is there anyone who thinks that Wes Anderson would make a Bond film that works as a Bond film? Admittedly, I would love to see it, but it would be a mismatch of style and subject matter.
This isn't always true. I think a lot of people were surprised at how successful Greta Gerwig was at directing Barbie given her prior career- but it wasn't like she had a long career, had been anointed as "great," and had a signature style. But I'd say that if you're looking for a great director, there are two directors that might be able to pull a Bond movie off- Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan. ....maybe Fincher. I'd have to think about Fincher.
If you're familiar with DV's work, you would understand that he isn't just some "ponderous" director- like Nolan, he does have signatures*, but he has proven adept at making movies from source material that is hard to adapt and doing a great job at it.
I see that not everyone here loved his Dune movies. Which is fine- that's certainly a valid opinion. But remember that Dune was hailed as not just a great movie artistically, but was also a box office smash. In retrospect, everyone is like, "Duh." But that source material has a long history of frustrating filmmakers, and before the first movie it was widely seen as a risky gamble to try it again because the source material is ... it's hard to adapt to a film. Don't believe me? Ask Jodorowsky. Or Lynch. Or Ridley Scott. Or David Lean. There were people that called Dune unfilmable and he pulled it off; even if you didn't think it was "all that," it was a success.
Blade Runner 2049 is similar- it didn't do quite as well as hoped at the Box Office (but it made money), but was a critical success and has only become more beloved with time.
Arrival? Made so much money compared to its budget, and was not only a critical success, managed to make a nearly unfilmable concept palatable.
All of that right there is impressive, but its when you look at his earlier films that you see that he can really do it all. The key, in my opinion, is Sicario. He found a way to tell what could be a basic and trite story in a completely different fashion (I won't explain here) and not only made a movie that was artistically successful, but commercially successful.
In other words- there's a handful of great directors. But I will use a sports analogy here- some coaches are great because they have a great system, and they get their team to play it. Other coaches are great because they don't have a single system, and they look at what players they have and they find a way to make what they have the best. Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Kubrick ... those are all in the first category. But DV is in the second category.
This doesn't mean that his Bond movie will be great, or even good. But I am really excited to see what he puts out.
*In Nolan's Bond movie, would Tom Hardy play a villain that is impossible to understand?
