Idris Elba Knows Who Should Be the Next Bond
It began in 2014, when emails released during the massive Sony hack revealed that then-studio cochair Amy Pascal told a colleague, "Idris should be the next Bond." Since then, Idris Elba has been at the center of the James Bond conversation, fielding questions about the future of the character as Daniel Craig's run comes close to an end. For years, Elba has maintained that he will definitely not be the next 007, but that hasn't stopped the constant deluge of questions about the famous secret agent.
Again, Elba says he is very much NOT going to play James Bond (sorry!), but he tells Varietythat he has an idea of who should.
“Are we interested in having a Bond character other than being a male? Could be a woman, could be a black woman, could be a white woman, but I think, that character, everybody would like to see it have - do something different with it, why not?”
Yes, why not?! Sure, Ian Fleming wrote James Bond as a white man, but that was more than half a century ago. Certainly after 65 years it's time to freshen up the franchise to be a little more...modern. Plus, there have already been books in the Bond canon about female spies. In the early 2000s, a series of books called The Moneypenny Diaries were published chronicling the missions of the popular Fleming character. If there's any time for that, it's certainly now.
Even though he very much never wanted to play the character again, Craig has one more James Bond movie in him. After that, it's definitely time to try something new.
