Finally, someone speaks up for what’s right (albeit on a fairly trivial issue):
James Bond casting director Debbie McWilliams has said 007 should remain white and male as auditions for Daniel Craig‘s replacement continue.
Amid speculation that the character could be reinvented as a woman or played by a black actor, McWilliams, who cast the previous 14 Bond films, said Ian Fleming ‘wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays’.
Well said, ma’am.
Unfortunately, that’s not chiseled in stone (although it should be). Why so?
McWilliams retired from her casting career prior to Amazon MGM Studios acquiring creative control of the James Bond franchise in 2025. The job of finding the next Bond now falls to casting director Nina Gold and director Denis Villeneuve.
Which means that James Bond may soon be Jamal Bond (a reformed teetotaler fresh from an AA meeting), or Jamie Bond (Lesbian Extraordinaire, with a license to munch).
Netflix has done worse, in the past.
I am so fucking sick of moviemakers turning beloved characters into something they were never intended to be. Netflix is the prime [sic] offender in this regard, having trampled all over traditional casting to be more “inclusive” and turning roles into travesties rather than just doing the simpler (and right) thing by sticking to the formula. But they’ve all done it in recent years, whether with Marvel characters or other such icons.
Hey, let’s hear it for Ian Of Green Gables, which tells the story of how a young boy has to make his way in the world after having been mistakenly put up for adoption with two lesbian Satanists.
What the hell: let’s have the whole story told in flashback (like Amadeus) after Ian is sent to a psychiatric ward for having murdered his adopted lesbian step-parents (because they molested him constantly), then blew up the offices of the government adoption agency which made the original screwup.
See how this plays out when you set out to be “creative” and change everything, just to make it more “eclectic”, more “relevant”, more “inclusive” or more “edgy”?
Never mind that you’ve just turned a beloved classic story into a near-parody.
I don’t know what the hell these people think they’re doing, or how they believe that they have the right to do this to our culture.
So let’s keep James Bond a white man, with sociopathic tendencies and a harsh, cynical outlook on life — just as Ian Fleming imagined him. It worked unbelievably well for the novel series (a.k.a. “franchise”, another word I’ve come to detest), and it worked for the Sean Connery-era of Bond movies (reflected in poll after poll, where Sir Sean continues to outrank all his successors — emphasis on “suck” — when it comes to the “ideal” James Bond).
And if The Usual Suspects don’t like that paradigm, they are free to come up with a new character and a new storyline outside the existing canon. It will fail, of course, just as the Bond “franchise” will fail when James is replaced with “alternative” versions.
You heard it here first.
Got to partially disagree with you, Kim. Idris Elba would have made a fine Bond when he was younger.
Jane Bond, OTOH? Just no.
If done right, a spinoff with other 00# characters could work. If they tried to make it woke though it would be a disaster.
Henry Cavill as Bond. Sydney Sweeney as “The Bond Girl”. David Tennant “Doctor Who”, “Broadchurch”, etc) as The Villain.
$2 billion box office, easily.
They killed 007, he is done. Another 00 character or Jane Bond as suggested but go slightly different with an American agent. The guy that replaced Felix in a subsequent film. Sorry I can’t think of the character but have them interact with a 00.
A similar pet peeve of mine: casting Eurotrash as Americans, when they can’t pull off the accent (see: Liam Neeson). I’ve long held we could get even by casting Stallone as Bond. But I don’t put it past the Holy Church of Woke prevailing upon its Hollywood faithful to cast Lizzo instead.
I came close to needing a new keyboard due to bursting out laughing with a mouthful of coffee! Stallone as Bond would be awesome so long as it was done for laughs like the 1967 Casino Royale!
Let me come back with a reverse problem.
Ladies and gentlethings, I give you “Cockney” Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.
Kim, Dick’s performance was priceless, but his “Cockney” accent was one of the worst voice efforts EVER and got roundly castigated for it, as was proper. And during that period of his career he was a raging alcoholic as well, which probably didn’t help much.
The Bond franchise has been through a few duds, starting with the very first. George Lazenby was an abject failure in the role and quite deservedly got canned.
Sean Connery will forever be Bond for me, even after HE got replaced and came back for the off-the-reservation (since I can’t say “canon”) film “Never Say Never Again”.
Roger Moore was somewhat passable, Pierce Brosnan need not have bothered but did (uggh), Timothy Dalton was if anything worse, and although the character was written and performed with more personal and introspective depth when Daniel Craig came aboard, I can’t say I was terribly disappointed when he got killed off.
I sort-of thought that David Niven, who performed the role in the spoof version of the Bond franchise in the original “Casino Royale” might’ve been a reasonable choice, given his abilities with on-screen comedic chemistry and witty dialogue, but I’m probably wrong there.
I do still miss Desmond Llewellyn as “Q” and Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, although I often wondered how an (obvious, although she was actually Canadian) American was working as “M”s principal secretary at MI6.
Some new stuff worth watching.
Wife and I saw “Young Washington” yesterday. Over all, well done. it was its last day in the theater. Maybe a dozen in the audience, mostly grey hair. We all applauded. This trailer caught my eye–
—
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EURriesRel0
Consider me “cautiously optimistic” only because Nina Gold has knocked it out of the park in the past with casting decisions in Game of Thrones, Rome and other excellent series. She really has the knack for knowing how to bring characters from the page to the screen. Now what the studio tells her to do is another matter entirely, and in that regard anything’s possible.
I don’t think I’d care very much if Bond was black, to be honest. One’s skin colour is less important than actions, after all, and especially so as a screen hero. But the new actor’s personality and character traits must fit the mold, and he has to be 100000% English; not an import, but with roots going back however many generations and absolutely and unapologetically British.
The one and only thing they should change with the new Bond is that he prefers his martinis stirred, not shaken.
The older I get the less interest I have in newer films. they’re insipid remakes and perversion of the classic movies is appalling and uninteresting.
I thought Daniel Craig did a very good job as Bond. The Craig films had the special effects and some character development. Connery made James Bond, 007. Pierce Brosnan was rather good. Roger Moore was bad. Tim Dalton was a filler. George Lazenby was a model turned “actor” for that film and that’s it. did I miss anyone?
I agree with you except Roger Moore. The franchise took an OTT turn that worked out well. His movies had great box office.
In the Daniel Craig movies, Bond had just the right amount of assholiness, that was totally missing from the Roger Moore movies.
I will probably be shot for even mentioning Johnny English.