New James Bond Needs To Be In His 30s… Just Pick one Already!

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Daniel Craig will no longer be tackling the role of James Bond in any of the iconic franchise’s future installments which means someone else will get to take the mantle. According to the producers, that someone will need to be in his 30s.

Bond producer Michael G. Wilson said that the search is now limited to those under 40 (sorry, if you’re over 40 and were still holding out hope) but noted that the legendary character isn’t some fresh-faced kid either.

Scottish actor Sean Connery as James Bond and German actor Gert Fröbe (1913 – 1988) as Auric Goldfinger in the film ‘Goldfinger’, 1964. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)

“We’ve tried looking at younger people in the past,” Wilson said at an event celebrating 60 years since the release of Dr. No.

“But trying to visualize it doesn’t work. Remember, Bond’s already a veteran. He’s had some experience. He’s a person who has been through the wars, so to speak.

“He isn’t some kid out of high school that you can bring in and start off,” said Wilson. “That’s why it works for a thirty-something.”

So if you’re in some kind of Bond pool, this rules out quite a few people. That includes one of the early favorites, Idris Elba.

Idris Elba and his gray beard are not Bond material. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)

Let’s Just Pick A Bond Please

I get that this is an important decision. We’re talking about the face of a massive franchise, but I’m just sick of hearing about this arduous search for the next Bond. Less thought goes into picking the Pope than it does picking the next 007.

Why does the next Bond have to be the face of the franchise for the next decade? Sign someone for one movie, and if they suck let’s move on to the next dude who fits in the suit. They probably call that the Lazenby treatment over at the Bond offices.

I’m just sick of the dragged-out, multi-year “who will be the next Bond?” cycle. Give someone the keys to the Aston Martin and let’s go rolling on Yesterday’s Tomorrow Is Tomorrow’s Today or whatever the next Bond film is called..

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Written by Matt Reigle

Matt is a University of Central Florida graduate and a long-suffering Philadelphia Flyers fan living in Orlando, Florida. He can usually be heard playing guitar, shoe-horning obscure quotes from The Simpsons into conversations, or giving dissertations to captive audiences on why Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.

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  1. lol – Reigle, you need to learn to do some research before you just rip off a cheap column off the top of your head. Lazenby was regarded as the best Bond after Connery – at least until Craig came along. Before Craig, Lazenby’s version in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was the most realistic and brutal, the truest to Fleming’s books.

    The Bond films (and books, post-John Gardner’s continuation) lost their mooring when they decided Bond would stop aging. In both the Fleming, and the first batch of authorized Gardner, novels, Bond was a former WWII Royal Navy commander who had trained as a frogman. He aged throughout the Fleming books, and the first part of the Gardner books. By the early 1980s, Bond was a middle-aged WWII vet struggling to stay in shape.

    I guess Fleming’s nieces and nephews were afraid the gravy train was going to stop and they’d have to get jobs, because suddenly in one of Gardner’s novels Bond is 35 again – no longer a WWII vet. No history at all.

    Should have just added other stories in the time period of the 1950s and ’60s instead of turning Bond into a bland cipher.

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