Who’s your vote for the next James Bond?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That would be great but sadly they’re probably both a bit old now. Rege-Jean Page seems a good fit, as I suggested.

Ideally, one would always worry that Bond might decide to kill you at a moment's notice. Elba can definitely pull that off, but I'm not sure Page can. He'd work in the Pierce Brosnan vein, though.

 

[Kaodi]

I wonder whether they could get away with casting Anya Taylor-Joy and then injecting just a little No One Lives Forever into her take.

 

[Morrus]

That would be great but sadly they’re probably both a bit old now.

A bit? Idris Elba is 53! If he did 5 films 3 years apart, he'd be 67 by the time he finished! He's missed the boat by about 20 years.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Misspost.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I think the Dalton movies were trying to be topical, with Afghanistan and Russia’s war being a thing for movies to dramatize at the time

IIRC one of the big impacts on the Dalton Bond movies was the AIDS scare, which meant that he wasn’t jumping into bed with such abandon as earlier bonds. Gave a very different feel to the films

 

[Henadic Theologian]

So we’ve had a Scot, an Irishman, an Australian, three Englishmen (and an unofficial American, but we don’t count that).

Three weren’t English, two weren’t British (not counting Niven). So those are our precedents.

Some of the usual favourites have aged out now—they need somebody in their 30s so they can get a good 15 years and 5 movies out of them before they age out. That ruels out Idris Elba (52). Henry Cavill is on the outer edge at 41.

So with all that in mind… who is your vote?

Its time for Canadian, the real life James Bond was Canadian, Sir William Samuel Stephenson.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Ideally, one would always worry that Bond might decide to kill you at a moment's notice. Elba can definitely pull that off, but I'm not sure Page can. He'd work in the Pierce Brosnan vein, though.

Brosnan Bond has by far the highest on-screen kill-count of any Bond, but maybe that was overcompensation? Also Moore was the least believable in terms of "will kill you at the drop of a hat" for my money, especially once he got into his "handsome grandad" era (For Your Eyes Only and A View To A Kill particularly have that vibe).

Page we haven't seen his full range, I think. We'd need to see him as a nasty villain before dismissing his ability to seem murderous I think. I should probably watch Soderberg's Black Bag, which features him in a spy-type role (and also has Pierce Brosnan in it!).

 

[jian]

Its time for Canadian, the real life James Bond was Canadian, Sir William Samuel Stephenson.

Stephenson was one of the inspirations for Bond, as Fleming admits, but Bond seems to have mostly been based on a romanticised version of Fleming himself (at least his taste for the high life, growing contempt for England, and love for Jamaica) and the various men he micromanaged in No 30 Commando during WW2 (the physical courage, commando training, and preference for violent solutions).

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Stephenson was one of the inspirations for Bond, as Fleming admits, but Bond seems to have mostly been based on a romanticised version of Fleming himself (at least his taste for the high life, growing contempt for England, and love for Jamaica) and the various men he micromanaged in No 30 Commando during WW2 (the physical courage, commando training, and preference for violent solutions).

I'm just saying a Canadian would be very fitting in that regard.

A Canadian as James Bond? It "could work," 007 producer says