At first I thought this sounded bad, but now…I actually don’t mind it. In this scenario Bond isn’t a codename (Craig being the same man as Connery, etc). He just retires and someone else takes his number, which is exactly what would happen anyway, and also if he died on the job. Jamaica as his retirement location is fantastic. The female 007 could make for an interesting and fun dynamic. James Bond is James Bond. Someone else getting his old number doesn’t make them ‘James Bond’ at all.
So hmm.
Agreed on the 007 use. But the female agent not succumbing to his charms - haven’t we had those time and again? And right now the whole thing sounds like a mix of OHMSS and NSNA, with CraigBond already in retirement. Boy, this Bond has aged considerably within only five films then.
Having Phoebe-Waller Bridge involved can only be a good thing. Fleabag is utterly fantastic and she is a brilliant writer (and actress).
This Bond-retired-Jamaica-female-007 has me slightly worried but let’s just wait and see.
I also don’t mind that as a concept - the idea that MI6 just moved on to the next OO7 while Bond couldn’t move on from being a spy, something which ultimately destroys his relationship with Madeline.
Daily Mail is still talking out of its arse though. IF that story happens, it’ll be a lucky guess, not insight.
Is it strictly a matter of age, or simply walking away from the job as he did at the end of SPECTRE? At that point it was all about embracing love and throwing away his gun.
The franchise is 24 films long now, repetition is inevitable. The ‘new 007’ would lend the point of difference, and that alone would be substantial enough. I kind of compare it to Bond being given 7777 in Fleming’s YOLT. The change in circumstances doesn’t reduce who he is deep down in his soul.
If this goes ahead, I do admit to hoping the whole girl power thing isn’t so obvious and blatant, but CraigBond being all “what do you think, 007?” would be ironic and playful. It’s all in the execution.
I can see this being a very attractive proposition for zeitgeist courting Eon. But I think the report gets the scene’s location in the story wrong. I really don’t see Craig going out with the ushering in of a female Bond; there’s courting zeitgeist and there’s completely undermining a highly performing business plan. The latter I really don’t see them risking by making Bond 7 a woman.
But if they start the movie with this wedding, playing out the last scene of OHMSS in Bond 25s PTS (as has been much mooted here), then the story gets an inciting incident with Swann’s death. More pertinently, having this female replacement at the wedding, whom Bond will have to then collaborate with, Eon get to play in the metoo sand box; they get to have fun with the ‘what if 007 were a woman’ zeitgeist, while not committing to it.
There’s plenty of fun to be had with Craig having to put up with ‘the bond girl’ being 007 and playing second fiddle to her in respect to the Mi6 hierarchy. Personally I think it’s a pretty inspired idea that will give a fresh spin to proceedings. But I think that by the end Craig will once again be knighted 007, with the his female successor assuming a new 00 (if indeed she survives; though I think Eon wouldn’t risk the metoo backlash of killing off their female 00). That way Bond 7’s casting is not predetermined and will imo without doubt be male.
However, I’m not at all impressed with the notion of PWB (Bridge) being hired as yet another chef in the mix. I find her dialogue cringingly contrived to serve her ‘aren’t I clever’ writing. Reminds me of the scripts from the sitcom Friend’s, in which virtually every word of dialogue is either the set-up, or punchline of a gag. Similarly every line of Feabag and Eve is working far too hard to set up a gag, or pay one off. It’s the opposite to realism; no one says anything a real person would say. Everything is on the nose and nothing is ever allowed to breath.
Imo good drama has a rhythm that keeps the space between realism and contrivance as taught as possible. In PWBs scripts there is no tension whatsoever, because there is zero realism; they’re cartoons. She writes cartoons very well indeed, but Bond - particularly Craigbond - is not a cartoon (at least not in its best form). So if it was Craig that demanded her hiring I find that pretty ironic, since his Bond is the antithesis of her style and imo the two will not marry well at all.
The notion of having Bond work with a female 007 is good. Calling on PWB to write that is knee jerk-misguided and bad.
Also, on a side note, if true, it means we’re getting a CJF movie that’s far closer in tone to the hyper-reality of Maniac rather than the mythic, but gritty drama of True Detective. More DAD than CR.
The problem is, for me, the tone of BOND 25.
If they continue the storyline with Madeleine they have to either choose the tragedy (her murder) which will naturally result in a “this time it´s really personal”-revenge tale. Or they just have them break up which weakens the whole affair and the ending of SPECTRE.
Or they do both - and this is where it gets especially tricky and easy to derail.
And courting the zeitgeist is, IMO, a bad idea. The whole CraigBond era has again and again posed the question: is Bond still relevant? Instead of just proving how relevant he is he was doubting himself, his job, his superiors, called on being too old and not fit anymore. Giving a female agent the 007 number is so on the nose it is not funny at all. And if that female agent also rejects Bond as a desirable male we got “Bond is a relic”-bingo.
Did they forget that Bond is wishfulfillment? He is the embodiment of male virility and charme. Taking away all of that points to EON losing faith in that character, desperately trying to react to the times.
I hope this rumor will be corrected by reality with inspired ideas that really put an interesting spin on the whole affair.
We know that. But a real life James Bond would be treated with scorn for being a straight, white male in woke 2019. Would that deter his attempts to woo beautiful women? I don’t think so. The times can change, but James Bond more or less stays the same. In my interpretation, it wouldn’t be taking away Bond’s persona, but rather commenting on the world we live in now. That said, I don’t want to embrace this idea too strongly, because it could turn on me and become a nightmare, but I can see positives.
I wonder if they realised exactly this late in the day, so they hire PWB hoping she can fix it with her ‘funny writing’. She’s probably done a pass amending the female 007’s dialogue, which Craig may have found stale in the scenes they share.
I see that a plausible chain of events in the same way the captain sunk the Titanic. In the frenzied panic of trying to fix something they just make it worse.
In the bigger picture, I think Bond’s constant questioning of his relevance is all about Craig. As an actor, without the tension of self doubt he may feel like he’s just going through the paces; playing an icon, rather than a real person. It’s just a shame that the successive writers couldn’t come up with alternative ways to facilitate 3 dimensions, but I don’t blame Craig for wanting them.
Would he? He has not been the kind of male chauvinist the metoo-movement rightly accuses since the Connery era.
Could be. I think it´s creating a problem rather than solving one, constantly questioning and defending the character.
The article claims she was hired was when Boyle’s script was rejected…no mention of Hodge, but Boyle is a more known name so…
Also - is anyone else disgusted and uncomfortable by the rags attempts to make MeToo, which in actuality is about support for survivors of systemic sexual abuse, into a cool buzz word?
Absolutely. It is so often misunderstood that it makes people cry out “oooh, PC again” when it is NOT about PC.
Completely, it’s such a cynical ploy from the tabloids. Disgraceful really.
I agree, I’m not a fan of its diminishing returns either.
I just imagine that some form of introspection is correctly demanded for by Craig, but what we’ve had was simply the best the writers could come up with, in terms of what all parties would agree to.
Journalists, politicians and producers all. Anything that achieves popularity, good or bad, is instantly weaponised by those with a grudge, those whom need votes and those who make a living out of media.
There’s naturally degrees of utilisation, some less cynical and well meaning than others, but they all add up to an homogenised, jingoistic cacophony that undermines the very cause it began as.
The guardian article makes more sense, Craig a fan of fleabag asks her when she’s in New York to act in the stage version of fleabag to inject a bit of humour into the script. Most likely still BS but MUCH more plausible.
Also I got a weird Devil May Care vibe whilst reading the Mail Online clickbait.
Bond being asked clandestinely to assess a new 00 agent who happens to be female.
Guardian also mentions a Raymond Benson novel and all matter of internet fake rumours - i would take with a grain of salt atm
I love this “breaking news”-sentence within the Guardian piece:
“Bond 25 might be based on the novel Never Dream of Dying by the US author Raymond Benson, which featured Bond as a spy.”
Man, finally he has found his profession!
In YOLT novel, Bond is no more 007, but 7777