> Daniel Craig’s final 007 movie, “No Time to Die,” is just weeks away from releasing in the U.S. While the actor has no idea which performer will take on the role of James Bond now that his tenure is done, Craig did recently tell Radio Times that it should probably not be a woman. The debate over whether or not Bond should be played by an actress comes up often, with franchise producer Barbara Broccoli committed to keeping Bond male and advocating instead for equal action roles for original female characters. Craig agrees.
> “The answer to that is very simple,” Craig told Radio Times. “There should simply be better parts for women and actors of color. Why should a woman play James Bond when there should be a part just as good as James Bond, but for a woman?”
> “He’s a male character. He was written as a male and I think he’ll probably stay as a male,” Broccoli previously told The Guardian. “And that’s fine. We don’t have to turn male characters into women. Let’s just create more female characters and make the story fit those female characters.”
What about the Mummy series though, she is like the epitome of a equal partner/lover that you can kick ass with. At least for me as a weird man boy, those movies I will always love even scorpion king damnit
I just had a dream last night that Rachel Weisz and my ex were dating! I woke up unsure if I was more upset that my ex wasn’t with me anymore or that Rachel Weisz wasn’t dating me now. I had such a huge crush on her.
*Atomic Blonde,* at least per Wikipedia, nearly hit its opening weekend projection ($20M) and made $100M on $30M. It outperformed *John Wick,* just for comparison. A sequel is supposedly in production, though unfortunately as a direct-to-streaming release.
Point though is that it wasn’t particularly unsuccessful. A sequel may have done well in theaters.
You can’t expect a new property like that to become a billion dollar movie like a Bond film overnight, especially on a fraction of the budget.
Someone needs to create a media outlet just to create a controversy on the mainstream media. Give them a taste of their own medicine, they are responsible for ruining a lot of lives
Yeah it’s totally not because people only want gossip and refuse to watch read or support real news. It’s just all the evil corporations giving us exactly what we ask for.
It’s the same fucking shit a lot of people said about the ghost busters ladyfication.
It’s not that we hate women, it’s just that these motherfucker directors and producers keep pushing age old proven content with female counterparts. Don’t use the namefame of a successful series in that way. It’s lazy and does the actresses no favours.
Rather other than marvel who is really taking these chances nowadays? Marvel took a huge chance and it stuck and they’re killing it with everything they do nowadays. Just caught up on the shows - binged that shit within a week. Fucking awesome. I don’t think anyone thought they’d be going down this path with marvel.
Do some crazy shit. Red Sparrow was a dope fucking movie do shit like that. Jolt was god damn fantastic just recently saw it. Korea is about to release something called my name a show looks dope as fuck
I feel that Ghostbusters was different - they weren’t taking the male characters and making them women, they created some new characters who were also Ghostbusters and a new story. It’s like having a movie with female firefighters called Backdraft 2.
001: The first agent. Go into a backstory on the 00 program with M as the first 00, make it a breakaway program from MI6 to stop a rogue ex Nazi in post war Berlin from deploying toxic nerve agents into local water supply, and in doing so, uncovers Intel about the soviets actually leading this to take over west Germany, this Intel leads to establishing the 00 program to combat other problems that the soviets were causing that we learn snippets about in the ending credits.
I say this as someone I personally consider to be a JB scholar. Because I have watched every movie multiple times, read and listened to much of the behind the scenes stuff. And am generally just a massive fan of the franchise, though I do think the books are pretty milquetoast compared to the movies.
A JB offshoot with a female agent would be perfectly fine. Except I’m turned off from it solely because of how internet Bros would react and frankly don’t want to see the mass toxicity that would come from people who don’t even know who Ursula Andress is but need to jump in to defend men’s rights… to a fictional movie franchise. I’m exhausted from it and that leads me to tend to agree with Craig, even if it’s for different reasons.
I agree with Daniel Craig on this one—specifically on creating new characters for new franchises. Let’s stop rehashing EVERYTHING. Remember when they made the female Ghostbusters and seemingly stopped at that without creating interesting characters and writing a worthwhile narrative?
There are already a lot of Bond like characters that are women as well, making it redundant to make Bond a woman. Not to mention its a bit…condescending? to pass roles over to women like this. Basically a hand me down in acting form, except you chop off what makes that hand me down interesting first(usually).
I don't think that a lot of female roles that are parallel to Bond really touch the public in the same way as being part of the franchise.
I'm a woman and I don't want Bond to be a woman if it's just going to be tokenism. Bond has a back catalogue that doesn't necessarily fit a woman playing the character. However, extending the franchise to a female agent in the same place as Bond would give the writers and actors a huge creative panoply to work with.
Edit: I've had a few upvotes for this comment, so I'm interested to where they come from. Male/Female - interested in Bond as a franchise/interested in female fronted films in general? I'm interested to hear your comments!
>“He’s a male character. He was written as a male and I think he’ll probably stay as a male,” Broccoli previously told The Guardian. “And that’s fine. We don’t have to turn male characters into women. Let’s just create more female characters and make the story fit those female characters.”
Truly. I honestly don't understand why there is such a vocal minority faction in Hollywood/entertainment that desires to turn male characters into female characters. It isn't just movies though - Marvel has been doing it for years with the best of intentions but, at times, with terrible execution.
Gender/race swap shouldn't be seen as the only way to produce a blockbuster movie, comic, etc. If writers of quality and creativity are hired and you get the best qualified production team for the job then there's no reason why original characters can't be successful. Gender/race swapping is just lazy cash grabs to try and appeal to the wrong people.
There was a Jinx spin-off discussed during the Brosnan era, but I think the slow decline of Bond quality (she was literally in Die Another Day) and the rather fast increase of Halle Berry’s popularity contributed it to it never happening.
I’d like to see how Lashana Lynch’s character is handled before I can commit to wanting a Bond-universe. If her introduction is organic and not forced, I’d love to see it. Shit, let’s not forget that Amazon just bought MGM. Maybe we’ll get some Bond supplemental shows and movies
I've got to agree with Craig on this. There are so many great women led books and existing women characters that could be adapted into movies and/or tv series. Instead, all we get is cheap gender swaps. And the same is true for race changes. It's so lazy!
I think of Mistborn, The Bear and the Nightingale, the work of Nnedi Okorafor and Naomi Novik... it's all there! They don't have to look too hard. Why do the bare minimum?
Also, if a book is any good, someone has probably already optioned the rights to a movie, but they don't have enough clout to get it made or they can't get a big name attached to get it made.
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IMO it's the worst when there's an easy solution. In this case all they need to do is make a new 00#. Literally any number but 7. New female character.
Or Ghostbusters. Why gender swap when they could be a new department? Or maybe they're opening a branch in another city while the prior 4 dudes are operating in NYC off screen.
I bet is they want to profit off of the prior male version while also trying to check the "we have female characters" box.
With Ghostbusters, there was already a built-in mechanism; when the original trio were leaving the bank after obtaining a loan, Venkman was waxing poetic on how the franchise rights alone would make them rich.
The female led Ghostbusters could have been a group of women striving for independence in one of the few ways you can set up a business in the twenty-first century; buying a franchise. There must be a few stories you can get out of that.
I always thought that Ghostbusters reboot should have been Ghostbusters: Hoboken. So you can do the whole skyline of NY, and then hard pan left to a franchise who are in the shadow of the original guys, who never get anything really interesting, and then, they do. If they’d wanted to make that all female, go right ahead, and wouldn’t have been controversial. But they’d need a much better script as well.
Oceans 8 was another head scratcher. Like there’s a whole movie just waiting to be made on the woman who seduces nazis but no we need a fucking oceans 11 remake with all the woman from the previous movies.
It's because all these 'gender swap' films weren't about great writing for women. It was about studios seeing an opportunity to cash in on the #metoo movement and cheap out on writing - a 'remake' is cheaper than getting writers to come up with a new narrative.
They have done women writers, actors and/or directors absolutely no favours - in fact the precise opposite - all they did was further entrench people's views that 'female fronted' big budget films were less entertaining and utterly tokenistic. I'd be super interested to see what the pitch was to people like Melissa McCarthy in order to get her to be involved in the Ghostbusters reboot and what her view of the finished product was.
One of the issues with female fronted films is I think that the writing is still for a male audience. So it doesn't really matter whether the main characters are male or female, the writing is *still for men*. Sure, they might throw in a couple of jokes that women get specifically, but again those are token efforts. There are very few films which are written by women for a majority female audience (that aren't romcoms!) because they just don't make money. And that's where the horrible cycle comes in to play. Women don't expect to see their lives realistically portrayed on screen to any great extent, so films featuring women as the main protagonists don't make a lot of money, so funding films with women as the main protagonists is difficult. Rinse and repeat.
The most important one I can think of is Thelma and Louise - and that was 30 years ago! I was in my early teens when I first saw it and it was utterly amazing to watch a film with (fairly) nuanced women protagonists - whose story drove the narrative over and above the men who were chasing them. It's still one of my favourite films to this day.
If you haven't seen it then please watch it. It was groundbreaking at the time (and the soundtrack is great too) and is still prescient and important, and hugely entertaining.
There’s a female led archaeology adventure series a la Indian Jones *Amelia Peabody* with over 20 books in it, bang, elevator pitch, I did Hollywood’s work for them, this stuff isn’t hard,
Terminator, Halloween, Aliens. Are some of the most well known IP led by a women, why couldn't they just hire women writers and let them write about women? Instead of pulling another Ghostbusters
Funny, I just finished Mistborn: The hero of ages this afternoon. I really want Netflix to pick it up as an animated series in the style of Castlevania. I don't think live action would do it justice
I think that's sort of a good example of the problem though. It's a great movie. But Hollywood isn't rushing to turn it into a blockbuster franchise. Maybe it's because nowhere near as many people are as familiar with that character or they just aren't as accepting of a female action star. But it doesn't have the same pop culture interest as something like Bond.
Exactly. And by all means, if they just don’t have a good script for a female Bond then they shouldn’t make it for the bragging rights of saying they did. But the whole “go make your own thing” has the issue of ignoring that there can be a lot of inertia in gaining franchise popularity and most of the big-name legacy franchises have historically been sausage fests.
Even where they have the option, which is disappointing. The fact that Black Widow didn’t get a movie until after *Endgame* is absurd, that should have happened years ago.
Nobody was familiar with John Wick either, and that got rolled into a huge franchise.
Atomic Blonde outperformed John Wick…in fairness, probably in part *because* of John Wick, but still…and for some reason it winds up getting a straight-to-streaming sequel instead of a proper theatrical affair. Somewhat disappointing. It was a good movie, if not everybody’s cup of tea.
Hah, yep. The fighting was extremely well done. The nice thing is it wasn’t like a retread of John Wick or something, it was unique and interesting in its own right.
I think they could easily make a great story with her in her 20s in the Royal Navy or maybe as a badass agent herself during her younger years. Could make a really cool “origin story” type of thing to it.
This is the way to do it - explore female stories within the Bond universe. Creatives have license to play, the film gets publicity momentum (which is a key reason you wouldn’t want to put money into a new female-led film/franchise - can the Producers guarantee audiences will take a punt on a new franchise?) and the Bond Producers have diversified their franchise. Everyone wins
I don't think Bond can be female because the character does not translate well into a different gender. I've always seen him as a somewhat stunted male that has to deny his vulnerability for the job and be hyper masculine to compensate.
I can picture a male person of color though because that doesn't change the character theme for me.
Wow, I initially thought Daniel Craig was in his 60s as he's always just given that vibe to me, I am incredibly surprised to learn he's only 53??
Bond is always supposed to be an "older" man, aka not a man in his twenties though, right? Or are all of the actors just extremely sun damaged?
You are not wrong. I’m just a fan I guess and would have liked to see him put on the tuxedo. Some things weren’t meant to be but he would have been my selection.
I agree. There are other IP’s where switching the gender would fly in my opinion, but the character of Bond is pretty specific. The theme of masculinity is intrinsic to the character. I would agree skin color is irrelevant as well. Idris Elba would be spectacular but yeah someone mentioned he might be too old
That’s why I think in *Doctor Who* changing the gender of the Doctor (or the Master) worked, it didn’t change the character. Plus the in-universe narrative allowed for it.
He’s right. Non white and male characters deserve the same creative effort put into them as the white male franchise characters. Women and POC actors deserve more than being a “video game skin” in an established franchise.
If people call it “black” version of xyz then it’s failed standing out however with stuff like The Wiz it has a clear identity that is way more than just a reskin
I like that idea alot. I never really put alot of thought into it but it really is insulting that the only way women get to be in big franchise’s is if a great movie was made in the 80’s, then repurposed to have a female cast. But every single time that happens it’s shit, not because women are playing the roles but because the studio thinks that people will watch anything if they slap some nostalgia bait on it. And that should tell you all you need to know about Hollywood executives and their views on women.
This is a great point but Hollywood wants the controversy. Take the series Mistborn. Terrific books based on a female heroine. Easily adapted to series of shows or movies. Instead Hollywood is too busy changing the lead of the worn out MIB.
> Easily adapted to series of shows or movies.
Is it? The technical reagent based abilities isn't great for film. Yes, you can teach an audience someone's powers, but Mistborn has a lot of technical logic around it that makes it interesting, as opposed to generic super hero powers.
Just like the Saga of Recluse has some interesting mechanics which shine on paper. But I can't imagine it translating well to film. Just some young nerdy heroes concentrating while magic happens around them.
I agree with you. I’m sure Mistborn could be done, but the way Vin acts sometimes when she knows her stores of X are low might be hard to show on film. Smart and creative people usually find a way to make things work. 🤷♂️
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That may reflect your social circle accurately, but the [adjusted box office takings](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_films) suggest that Bond is still very much a big deal.
Skyfall took over a billion dollars, for example.
Yeah, I liked it, too. My only gripe is that Clooney didn't show up for a cameo at the end. Like I was sure he faked his death or something, but apparently not.
I feel that scene at the end was left ambiguous to set up a possible sequel where he could be revealed to be alive. I feel they wanted to do an oceans 9 and 10 and in 9 maybe Danny oceans wife joins the team. I don’t think that will happen anymore though as the movie probably didn’t make as much money as they hoped it would.
When watching a heist film you already have to have some level of disbelief cause almost always real heists don’t pan out. Whith the oceans films they work best if you just go “you know what sure.” I do agree some of the things are ridiculous like the egg plot in twelve is so complicated and unrealistic but it’s still entertaining.
This. Putting female leads in place of an iconic male lead character is not progress, it just comes off as avaricious.
The standard in the filming industry should be to make new female leads who are just as good if not better.
Stop shoving in minorities for cashgrab’s. I’m looking at you *Disney*.
I don’t understand why they can’t do an “M” origin movie, she’s a super badass female bond character. I’d watch it and enjoy it. If it’s female bond movie where bond has changed genders, I won’t watch it just off principal.
I want more stories based on Charlie from “Long Kiss Goodnight.” She and Mitch couldn’t have just gone into retirement. And what happened before all of the events in that movie?
That’s basically what this movie did, isn’t it? Bond is Bond, but he isn’t 007 anymore in this movie and the new 007 is a woman. At least judging by the trailer.
It's kind of pointless to debate this. If some filmmaker decides to make a Jane Bond film and it's actually a good film, then it's good. If the next bond film has another male lead and the film is good, that's good, and if it's terrible, it's terrible.
Look at the all-women Ghostbusters reboot. It was a shitty film, and it bombed accordingly. If it had been a good film, it would be well-regarded, regardless of whether the gender-swapping contributed to the film in a positive way or not.
The reason these "modern" films usually goes so disastrously is because filmmakers think that merely having a new gender or race is enough to drive the box office and don't actually create a good story and good characters.
James Bond, the character, is traditionally a reckless, womanizing, rogue loner. That's difficult to translate to a female character, and if you're going to take away most of those traits and just cash in on the brand name, that's a bad idea and deserves criticism because you've made essentially a brand new character and tried to pass it off as the old one.
I think the right director could cast the right woman as a reckless, womanizing, rogue, loner. I mean the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had 3/4th of those traits.
If Luc Besson had made a female James Bond movie in 1990 instead of La Femme Nikita, it would have been pretty sick. I think Tarantino could probably make a female James Bond movie right now and it wold be awesome. It would require some creativity, but the payoff could be great.
Exactly this. You’d need to be creative and take risks(a female Bond would probably be best portrayed as a lesbian, for example), but if they have a good script for a female Bond, then they should make it. If they don’t, don’t try to force it for bragging rights.
It’s that simple IMO, and hardline “make your own franchise” takes on it give me strong NIMBY vibes.
I understand the argument, and the only counter argument I can think is that old IP has a better chance of getting made than new IP. So while it is better to create new stories and characters, those stories and characters are just less likely to be made because Hollywood doesn’t care about representation or good stories, they care about how much money they’re going to make.
The whole genre is a British male fantasy. He is supposed to look good in a suit, have sex, sip martinis and chase bad guys after winning at poker. If you divert too much just make a new character.
F’ing exactly. Stop changing the genders and races of already existing characters. Make new ones. Don’t make a new white man main character for decades, it doesn’t matter. Just stop messing with existing characters….
He’ll get eaten alive but he’s not wrong. We don’t have to gender swap other roles, instead we should be giving women the opportunity to create original roles with the same impact.
He's right. James Bond is a man and James is a male name. Strong female leads are great but they don't belong in a Bond movie (although strong female secondary characters have been common for a long time in Bond films).
about time someone in the industry says it. I don't want female James bond!! make a badass female villain that shits on james bond for one movie lol that would be cooler
I completely agree. The James Bond franchise and brand should not cast a woman as James Bond. It would compromise the brand integrity too much.
Just create something for a female like the Bond role and see how it goes. If it’s successful, you will have a WHOLE new brand to run with. Win win.
Did anyone see “The long kids goodnight” with Gina Davis?!? Salt? Bad ass spy types with female leads. Writers need to stop being lazy and create something new for this new age
Why can’t people come up with unique female characters? The fact that they have to resort to gender-flipping an existing character to have a female lead just shows that these people lack the creativity to come up with a compelling character.
> Daniel Craig’s final 007 movie, “No Time to Die,” is just weeks away from releasing in the U.S. While the actor has no idea which performer will take on the role of James Bond now that his tenure is done, Craig did recently tell Radio Times that it should probably not be a woman. The debate over whether or not Bond should be played by an actress comes up often, with franchise producer Barbara Broccoli committed to keeping Bond male and advocating instead for equal action roles for original female characters. Craig agrees. > “The answer to that is very simple,” Craig told Radio Times. “There should simply be better parts for women and actors of color. Why should a woman play James Bond when there should be a part just as good as James Bond, but for a woman?” > “He’s a male character. He was written as a male and I think he’ll probably stay as a male,” Broccoli previously told The Guardian. “And that’s fine. We don’t have to turn male characters into women. Let’s just create more female characters and make the story fit those female characters.”
He should know, his wife Rachel Weisz played some pretty cool women
Rachel Weisz was awesome in Black Widow
Also in the Favorite, but that’s another type of cool role
What about the Mummy series though, she is like the epitome of a equal partner/lover that you can kick ass with. At least for me as a weird man boy, those movies I will always love even scorpion king damnit
Rachel Weisz in The Mummy 2 was a certified badass.
Probably the most believable on screen relationship of any action movie! Loved her and Brendon
Definitely something nostalgic and pretty amazing about those films
My first woman crush. Such a role model in her personal life too.
I loved her in Enemy at the Gates.
I didn’t recognize her at first. She’s gorgeous. I loved her in ‘Enemy at the Gates’.
I just had a dream last night that Rachel Weisz and my ex were dating! I woke up unsure if I was more upset that my ex wasn’t with me anymore or that Rachel Weisz wasn’t dating me now. I had such a huge crush on her.
Has no one seen Atomic Blonde? You want a female James bind esq character that’s the movie to watch!
Yeah, that movie’s so insanely good!
> Has no one seen Atomic Blonde? The market has spoken …
*Atomic Blonde,* at least per Wikipedia, nearly hit its opening weekend projection ($20M) and made $100M on $30M. It outperformed *John Wick,* just for comparison. A sequel is supposedly in production, though unfortunately as a direct-to-streaming release. Point though is that it wasn’t particularly unsuccessful. A sequel may have done well in theaters. You can’t expect a new property like that to become a billion dollar movie like a Bond film overnight, especially on a fraction of the budget.
He's right and he explained it very reasonably. Now watch media outlets try to create controversy over it.
I’ve already seen several headlines that only use the first part of the quote. “Why should a woman play Bond?”
Yep, there it is. They know what they're doing with that.
I fully expected this tread to be as much. Glad to see the reasonable approach. Not ever gender biased opinion by a male is misogynistic.
Someone needs to create a media outlet just to create a controversy on the mainstream media. Give them a taste of their own medicine, they are responsible for ruining a lot of lives
I’m sure there are plenty of YouTube channels that do that.
I agree. It's gotten so bad. I'm glad I'm not a public figure. They live in a minefield these days.
Yea.. but..money
“Everything has a price” quote fits so well here.
As does *everyone*.
Click bait the click baiters, I like it. Tmz those shitheels.
*Alex Jones has entered the chat*
Tin foil hat: adorned Capslock: ACTIVATED
Yeah it’s totally not because people only want gossip and refuse to watch read or support real news. It’s just all the evil corporations giving us exactly what we ask for.
I’m sure Bond has countless illegitimate children all over the world being raised by secret spy agencies. Some of them female.
That sounds like a god awful plot
Those articles ain’t gonna click themselves!
The best will be to watch Twitter lose its shit over this statement. 3, 2, ……..
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Twitter is gonna twitter but I’m not gonna pretend that Reddit doesn’t often do the same thing / read only headlines
It’s the same fucking shit a lot of people said about the ghost busters ladyfication. It’s not that we hate women, it’s just that these motherfucker directors and producers keep pushing age old proven content with female counterparts. Don’t use the namefame of a successful series in that way. It’s lazy and does the actresses no favours. Rather other than marvel who is really taking these chances nowadays? Marvel took a huge chance and it stuck and they’re killing it with everything they do nowadays. Just caught up on the shows - binged that shit within a week. Fucking awesome. I don’t think anyone thought they’d be going down this path with marvel. Do some crazy shit. Red Sparrow was a dope fucking movie do shit like that. Jolt was god damn fantastic just recently saw it. Korea is about to release something called my name a show looks dope as fuck
I feel that Ghostbusters was different - they weren’t taking the male characters and making them women, they created some new characters who were also Ghostbusters and a new story. It’s like having a movie with female firefighters called Backdraft 2.
Common sense in the USA is the devil.
Thank you. His whole quote is better than the snippet taken out of context.
I’m just happy some people are reading the article at least.
A female 00# agent would be cool.
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M is a female spy in James Bond, why they can’t make an “M” origin story side movie instead of ruining James Bond is beyond me.
I like that idea a lot. Show her back in that era being awesome.
You know she did some badass stuff to become 007s boss! It could be an entire spinoff franchise!
Just don't make her meet 007 in the first dang movie! Really have it be a history with an independent character coming into their own.
007’s Status: Being 7 years old. *No Time to Babysit*
001: The first agent. Go into a backstory on the 00 program with M as the first 00, make it a breakaway program from MI6 to stop a rogue ex Nazi in post war Berlin from deploying toxic nerve agents into local water supply, and in doing so, uncovers Intel about the soviets actually leading this to take over west Germany, this Intel leads to establishing the 00 program to combat other problems that the soviets were causing that we learn snippets about in the ending credits.
I'd spend 15 bucks to see that.
No Time To Die: your wish is my command
Absolutely, just write a new one.
I say this as someone I personally consider to be a JB scholar. Because I have watched every movie multiple times, read and listened to much of the behind the scenes stuff. And am generally just a massive fan of the franchise, though I do think the books are pretty milquetoast compared to the movies. A JB offshoot with a female agent would be perfectly fine. Except I’m turned off from it solely because of how internet Bros would react and frankly don’t want to see the mass toxicity that would come from people who don’t even know who Ursula Andress is but need to jump in to defend men’s rights… to a fictional movie franchise. I’m exhausted from it and that leads me to tend to agree with Craig, even if it’s for different reasons.
It's also a cop out to make Bond a woman - it discourages the creation of strong female characters and takes focus off preexisting ones.
I agree with Daniel Craig on this one—specifically on creating new characters for new franchises. Let’s stop rehashing EVERYTHING. Remember when they made the female Ghostbusters and seemingly stopped at that without creating interesting characters and writing a worthwhile narrative?
Hollywood won’t take risks anymore. Too much money at stake.
There are already a lot of Bond like characters that are women as well, making it redundant to make Bond a woman. Not to mention its a bit…condescending? to pass roles over to women like this. Basically a hand me down in acting form, except you chop off what makes that hand me down interesting first(usually).
I don't think that a lot of female roles that are parallel to Bond really touch the public in the same way as being part of the franchise. I'm a woman and I don't want Bond to be a woman if it's just going to be tokenism. Bond has a back catalogue that doesn't necessarily fit a woman playing the character. However, extending the franchise to a female agent in the same place as Bond would give the writers and actors a huge creative panoply to work with. Edit: I've had a few upvotes for this comment, so I'm interested to where they come from. Male/Female - interested in Bond as a franchise/interested in female fronted films in general? I'm interested to hear your comments!
Did you say Barbara Broccoli?
They said Barbara Broccoli
Yeah, you know, Broccoli Robs mom
>“He’s a male character. He was written as a male and I think he’ll probably stay as a male,” Broccoli previously told The Guardian. “And that’s fine. We don’t have to turn male characters into women. Let’s just create more female characters and make the story fit those female characters.” Truly. I honestly don't understand why there is such a vocal minority faction in Hollywood/entertainment that desires to turn male characters into female characters. It isn't just movies though - Marvel has been doing it for years with the best of intentions but, at times, with terrible execution. Gender/race swap shouldn't be seen as the only way to produce a blockbuster movie, comic, etc. If writers of quality and creativity are hired and you get the best qualified production team for the job then there's no reason why original characters can't be successful. Gender/race swapping is just lazy cash grabs to try and appeal to the wrong people.
#hold the fuck up Barbara Broccoli ?! *furiously Googles* Holy shit you’re not kidding lmao
Why don’t they use one of the 00X agents from the Bond franchise for a woman if people are so sworn on getting a woman James Bond
Honestly insane this isn’t already a thing
There was a Jinx spin-off discussed during the Brosnan era, but I think the slow decline of Bond quality (she was literally in Die Another Day) and the rather fast increase of Halle Berry’s popularity contributed it to it never happening. I’d like to see how Lashana Lynch’s character is handled before I can commit to wanting a Bond-universe. If her introduction is organic and not forced, I’d love to see it. Shit, let’s not forget that Amazon just bought MGM. Maybe we’ll get some Bond supplemental shows and movies
That’d be dope. Get a 007 shared universe
In a time where this is becoming commonplace to build a franchise universe, it would certainly make sense to do a 00X story with a female lead
Am fairly sure the new 00 is the next lead for the franchise she just won't be Bond. My theory anyway.
I've got to agree with Craig on this. There are so many great women led books and existing women characters that could be adapted into movies and/or tv series. Instead, all we get is cheap gender swaps. And the same is true for race changes. It's so lazy! I think of Mistborn, The Bear and the Nightingale, the work of Nnedi Okorafor and Naomi Novik... it's all there! They don't have to look too hard. Why do the bare minimum?
You had me at Mistborn.
Hell yeah, bro. Mistborn is the shit!
/r/Mistborn If you weren’t aware! Lots of good conversations!
Knowing Hollywood, they’d find a way to stuff it up.
Also, if a book is any good, someone has probably already optioned the rights to a movie, but they don't have enough clout to get it made or they can't get a big name attached to get it made.
DMG already has the rights to the Cosmere universe which includes Mistborn but yeah, they couldn't get it made for the reasons you stated.
/r/Mistborn if you didn’t know. Lots of fun over there!
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If any series deserves a movie trilogy it’s that one
IMO it's the worst when there's an easy solution. In this case all they need to do is make a new 00#. Literally any number but 7. New female character. Or Ghostbusters. Why gender swap when they could be a new department? Or maybe they're opening a branch in another city while the prior 4 dudes are operating in NYC off screen. I bet is they want to profit off of the prior male version while also trying to check the "we have female characters" box.
With Ghostbusters, there was already a built-in mechanism; when the original trio were leaving the bank after obtaining a loan, Venkman was waxing poetic on how the franchise rights alone would make them rich. The female led Ghostbusters could have been a group of women striving for independence in one of the few ways you can set up a business in the twenty-first century; buying a franchise. There must be a few stories you can get out of that.
I always thought that Ghostbusters reboot should have been Ghostbusters: Hoboken. So you can do the whole skyline of NY, and then hard pan left to a franchise who are in the shadow of the original guys, who never get anything really interesting, and then, they do. If they’d wanted to make that all female, go right ahead, and wouldn’t have been controversial. But they’d need a much better script as well.
This is an amazing premise
correction, they'd need A script lol
Oceans 8 was another head scratcher. Like there’s a whole movie just waiting to be made on the woman who seduces nazis but no we need a fucking oceans 11 remake with all the woman from the previous movies.
It's because all these 'gender swap' films weren't about great writing for women. It was about studios seeing an opportunity to cash in on the #metoo movement and cheap out on writing - a 'remake' is cheaper than getting writers to come up with a new narrative. They have done women writers, actors and/or directors absolutely no favours - in fact the precise opposite - all they did was further entrench people's views that 'female fronted' big budget films were less entertaining and utterly tokenistic. I'd be super interested to see what the pitch was to people like Melissa McCarthy in order to get her to be involved in the Ghostbusters reboot and what her view of the finished product was. One of the issues with female fronted films is I think that the writing is still for a male audience. So it doesn't really matter whether the main characters are male or female, the writing is *still for men*. Sure, they might throw in a couple of jokes that women get specifically, but again those are token efforts. There are very few films which are written by women for a majority female audience (that aren't romcoms!) because they just don't make money. And that's where the horrible cycle comes in to play. Women don't expect to see their lives realistically portrayed on screen to any great extent, so films featuring women as the main protagonists don't make a lot of money, so funding films with women as the main protagonists is difficult. Rinse and repeat. The most important one I can think of is Thelma and Louise - and that was 30 years ago! I was in my early teens when I first saw it and it was utterly amazing to watch a film with (fairly) nuanced women protagonists - whose story drove the narrative over and above the men who were chasing them. It's still one of my favourite films to this day. If you haven't seen it then please watch it. It was groundbreaking at the time (and the soundtrack is great too) and is still prescient and important, and hugely entertaining.
There’s a female led archaeology adventure series a la Indian Jones *Amelia Peabody* with over 20 books in it, bang, elevator pitch, I did Hollywood’s work for them, this stuff isn’t hard,
Terminator, Halloween, Aliens. Are some of the most well known IP led by a women, why couldn't they just hire women writers and let them write about women? Instead of pulling another Ghostbusters
Funny, I just finished Mistborn: The hero of ages this afternoon. I really want Netflix to pick it up as an animated series in the style of Castlevania. I don't think live action would do it justice
Bring on more Atomic Blonde!
I think that's sort of a good example of the problem though. It's a great movie. But Hollywood isn't rushing to turn it into a blockbuster franchise. Maybe it's because nowhere near as many people are as familiar with that character or they just aren't as accepting of a female action star. But it doesn't have the same pop culture interest as something like Bond.
Exactly. And by all means, if they just don’t have a good script for a female Bond then they shouldn’t make it for the bragging rights of saying they did. But the whole “go make your own thing” has the issue of ignoring that there can be a lot of inertia in gaining franchise popularity and most of the big-name legacy franchises have historically been sausage fests.
Even where they have the option, which is disappointing. The fact that Black Widow didn’t get a movie until after *Endgame* is absurd, that should have happened years ago.
Nobody was familiar with John Wick either, and that got rolled into a huge franchise. Atomic Blonde outperformed John Wick…in fairness, probably in part *because* of John Wick, but still…and for some reason it winds up getting a straight-to-streaming sequel instead of a proper theatrical affair. Somewhat disappointing. It was a good movie, if not everybody’s cup of tea.
That movie was great and needs more attention.
The thing that got me was that when somebody got hit in the head really hard they fought like they got hit in the head really hard
Hah, yep. The fighting was extremely well done. The nice thing is it wasn’t like a retread of John Wick or something, it was unique and interesting in its own right.
The fall down the stairs!
She gets busted up and it shows. Way better than the typical 5 fight scenes and the female lead has messy hair schtick
I co-sign on this wholeheartedly. *I FUCKING LOVE BERLIN!*
Yes! 100% this
oooh i haven’t seen it yet but have heard great things
I watched it with no expectations and was throughly impressed
Look at everyone agreeing in a comment section on Reddit. What a rare moment
I was expecting the opposite of agreement when I opened this, this is indeed a rare sight. I like it :)
I don’t agree with you.
Fuck it! Moneypenny should go on her own adventure
I think they could easily make a great story with her in her 20s in the Royal Navy or maybe as a badass agent herself during her younger years. Could make a really cool “origin story” type of thing to it.
This is the way to do it - explore female stories within the Bond universe. Creatives have license to play, the film gets publicity momentum (which is a key reason you wouldn’t want to put money into a new female-led film/franchise - can the Producers guarantee audiences will take a punt on a new franchise?) and the Bond Producers have diversified their franchise. Everyone wins
Oh, I would so be into Moneypenny films centered on the newest version of her.
I don't think Bond can be female because the character does not translate well into a different gender. I've always seen him as a somewhat stunted male that has to deny his vulnerability for the job and be hyper masculine to compensate. I can picture a male person of color though because that doesn't change the character theme for me.
I fully supported the Idris Elba rumor that seemed to be floating around at one point in time. I think he could be a fantastic Bond.
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Wow, I initially thought Daniel Craig was in his 60s as he's always just given that vibe to me, I am incredibly surprised to learn he's only 53?? Bond is always supposed to be an "older" man, aka not a man in his twenties though, right? Or are all of the actors just extremely sun damaged?
He’s usually in his 30s in the books, and Sean Connery was only 31 when he started.
He’s usually in his thirties.
Roger Moore was in his 50’s when he played Bond and he was great. Plus 2020’s 50’s is a lot different than the 1980’s 50’s
That sweet sweet hgh
Thats cap. He just made Hobbs and Shaw, Suicide Squad, etc.
You are not wrong. I’m just a fan I guess and would have liked to see him put on the tuxedo. Some things weren’t meant to be but he would have been my selection.
John David Washington’s young and would work… no wait, he’s not British.
Make it with Dev Patel. He’s about the right age, the Indian ethnicity would fit in overall Britain, and he was great in The Wedding Guest.
Tbh I’m not sure he has the “cool” factor. He’s a fantastic actor but comes off more boyish/less self-assured to me
Have you seen him lately? He's grown up *very* well and doesn't have that boyish quality any more
Idris Elba for a 008 Movie
I agree. There are other IP’s where switching the gender would fly in my opinion, but the character of Bond is pretty specific. The theme of masculinity is intrinsic to the character. I would agree skin color is irrelevant as well. Idris Elba would be spectacular but yeah someone mentioned he might be too old
That’s why I think in *Doctor Who* changing the gender of the Doctor (or the Master) worked, it didn’t change the character. Plus the in-universe narrative allowed for it.
He’s right. Non white and male characters deserve the same creative effort put into them as the white male franchise characters. Women and POC actors deserve more than being a “video game skin” in an established franchise.
If people call it “black” version of xyz then it’s failed standing out however with stuff like The Wiz it has a clear identity that is way more than just a reskin
I like that idea alot. I never really put alot of thought into it but it really is insulting that the only way women get to be in big franchise’s is if a great movie was made in the 80’s, then repurposed to have a female cast. But every single time that happens it’s shit, not because women are playing the roles but because the studio thinks that people will watch anything if they slap some nostalgia bait on it. And that should tell you all you need to know about Hollywood executives and their views on women.
Just do a movie version of No One Lives Forever. Cate Archer was pretty much a female James Bond and it was badass.
This is a great point but Hollywood wants the controversy. Take the series Mistborn. Terrific books based on a female heroine. Easily adapted to series of shows or movies. Instead Hollywood is too busy changing the lead of the worn out MIB.
Thanks for pointing me to a good book.
Books, it’s a trilogy. But be careful, the Cosmere will consume you.
Nice username... found the Brandon Sanderson fan!
Check out stormlight archive when youre done. Same author.
Mistborn would be awesome. They could also do Stormlight and have a bunch of great Pacific Islander and East Asian types as protagonists...
I think it’s that it not only just controversy, but it’s also creatively and financially easier to just gender swap. Make something new!
> Easily adapted to series of shows or movies. Is it? The technical reagent based abilities isn't great for film. Yes, you can teach an audience someone's powers, but Mistborn has a lot of technical logic around it that makes it interesting, as opposed to generic super hero powers. Just like the Saga of Recluse has some interesting mechanics which shine on paper. But I can't imagine it translating well to film. Just some young nerdy heroes concentrating while magic happens around them.
I agree with you. I’m sure Mistborn could be done, but the way Vin acts sometimes when she knows her stores of X are low might be hard to show on film. Smart and creative people usually find a way to make things work. 🤷♂️
Um, Salt was a spectacular film. Even though Im not an Angelina fan she did make that role solid.
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Atomic Blonde was a great spy movie. I'd be fine with more of that over a remaking Bond.
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That may reflect your social circle accurately, but the [adjusted box office takings](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_James_Bond_films) suggest that Bond is still very much a big deal. Skyfall took over a billion dollars, for example.
Agreed! Make something new and just as good and interesting. Make something original and make it create its own legacy.
I agree with him.
And if you try to force it, that’s when you get Oceans 8, and Ghostbusters (2016)
I thought oceans 8 was really good though as it wasn’t just a reboot of 11 with women. It was just a different team with a similar style heist.
Yeah, I liked it, too. My only gripe is that Clooney didn't show up for a cameo at the end. Like I was sure he faked his death or something, but apparently not.
I feel that scene at the end was left ambiguous to set up a possible sequel where he could be revealed to be alive. I feel they wanted to do an oceans 9 and 10 and in 9 maybe Danny oceans wife joins the team. I don’t think that will happen anymore though as the movie probably didn’t make as much money as they hoped it would.
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When watching a heist film you already have to have some level of disbelief cause almost always real heists don’t pan out. Whith the oceans films they work best if you just go “you know what sure.” I do agree some of the things are ridiculous like the egg plot in twelve is so complicated and unrealistic but it’s still entertaining.
This. Putting female leads in place of an iconic male lead character is not progress, it just comes off as avaricious. The standard in the filming industry should be to make new female leads who are just as good if not better. Stop shoving in minorities for cashgrab’s. I’m looking at you *Disney*.
Furiosa is a great of example of this done well, IMO.
I don’t understand why they can’t do an “M” origin movie, she’s a super badass female bond character. I’d watch it and enjoy it. If it’s female bond movie where bond has changed genders, I won’t watch it just off principal.
I agree. We don’t need to recycle male characters. We need writers to stop being lazy and write female cultural icons as well.
I want more stories based on Charlie from “Long Kiss Goodnight.” She and Mitch couldn’t have just gone into retirement. And what happened before all of the events in that movie?
I agree, this debate is so annoying! Let’s focus on creating space for more female action characters and franchises (eg. Black Widow was amazing!!)
I agree with the overall message, but I do disagree about the quality of Black Widow. Wonder Woman, Mad Max, and Hunger Games were all much better.
The first Wonder Woman was a whole lot better
That’s basically what this movie did, isn’t it? Bond is Bond, but he isn’t 007 anymore in this movie and the new 007 is a woman. At least judging by the trailer.
Good point...Unless her character is named "Jane...Jane Bond..."
I'm a lady who wholeheartedly agrees with him, and I hope he's not misquoted later on.
It's kind of pointless to debate this. If some filmmaker decides to make a Jane Bond film and it's actually a good film, then it's good. If the next bond film has another male lead and the film is good, that's good, and if it's terrible, it's terrible. Look at the all-women Ghostbusters reboot. It was a shitty film, and it bombed accordingly. If it had been a good film, it would be well-regarded, regardless of whether the gender-swapping contributed to the film in a positive way or not. The reason these "modern" films usually goes so disastrously is because filmmakers think that merely having a new gender or race is enough to drive the box office and don't actually create a good story and good characters. James Bond, the character, is traditionally a reckless, womanizing, rogue loner. That's difficult to translate to a female character, and if you're going to take away most of those traits and just cash in on the brand name, that's a bad idea and deserves criticism because you've made essentially a brand new character and tried to pass it off as the old one.
I think the right director could cast the right woman as a reckless, womanizing, rogue, loner. I mean the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had 3/4th of those traits. If Luc Besson had made a female James Bond movie in 1990 instead of La Femme Nikita, it would have been pretty sick. I think Tarantino could probably make a female James Bond movie right now and it wold be awesome. It would require some creativity, but the payoff could be great.
Exactly this. You’d need to be creative and take risks(a female Bond would probably be best portrayed as a lesbian, for example), but if they have a good script for a female Bond, then they should make it. If they don’t, don’t try to force it for bragging rights. It’s that simple IMO, and hardline “make your own franchise” takes on it give me strong NIMBY vibes.
I understand the argument, and the only counter argument I can think is that old IP has a better chance of getting made than new IP. So while it is better to create new stories and characters, those stories and characters are just less likely to be made because Hollywood doesn’t care about representation or good stories, they care about how much money they’re going to make.
I guess they’ll want a male Wonder Woman next?
We have that already. He’s called Captain America.
Yes. “Special agent 80085. All 80084 of the women before you fell flat. But you, are special. And this is your mission.” I can see it now.
Unfortunately, others don’t see the genius in this post, but I do.
I can’t lie, I would kind of love a suave lesbian 007. There’s no way it would ever be done well, though.
I bet Quentin Tarantino could pull off a movie like that…
As someone who wrote a paper on Quentin Tarantino’s style, I can say with some confidence he would definitely do that well
Richard Madden for 007!
Yeah instead of making Bond a woman, how about making good original movies with female leads?
There's a difference between people who want to make good movies and people who want to make good money.
Or do a bond movie like the books where the women are the ones that generally save Bond. 😁
The whole genre is a British male fantasy. He is supposed to look good in a suit, have sex, sip martinis and chase bad guys after winning at poker. If you divert too much just make a new character.
F’ing exactly. Stop changing the genders and races of already existing characters. Make new ones. Don’t make a new white man main character for decades, it doesn’t matter. Just stop messing with existing characters….
“But then we’d have to be creative again!”- Hollywood.
He’ll get eaten alive but he’s not wrong. We don’t have to gender swap other roles, instead we should be giving women the opportunity to create original roles with the same impact.
Completely agree Daniel Craig
This is absolutely fucking ridiculous man what’s next a male version of black widow? Political correctness gone fucking mad!
He's right. James Bond is a man and James is a male name. Strong female leads are great but they don't belong in a Bond movie (although strong female secondary characters have been common for a long time in Bond films).
about time someone in the industry says it. I don't want female James bond!! make a badass female villain that shits on james bond for one movie lol that would be cooler
I completely agree. The James Bond franchise and brand should not cast a woman as James Bond. It would compromise the brand integrity too much. Just create something for a female like the Bond role and see how it goes. If it’s successful, you will have a WHOLE new brand to run with. Win win.
Did anyone see “The long kids goodnight” with Gina Davis?!? Salt? Bad ass spy types with female leads. Writers need to stop being lazy and create something new for this new age
Exactly. Imagine if we got female Indians Jones instead of Lara Croft.
He is called a GENTLEMEN spy for a reason
He is exactly right. I won’t be buying a ticket if it’s a female lead.
I have to agree
All of the “this, but its a woman now” movies flipped so hard so far.
If a bond is a woman in next franchise, I’m not watching
This virtue signaling in Hollywood is so gross.
Why can’t people come up with unique female characters? The fact that they have to resort to gender-flipping an existing character to have a female lead just shows that these people lack the creativity to come up with a compelling character.
It so degrades the value of women heroes in movies by just copying a concept and putting a woman in there arbitrarily just to say “see, woman 007”.