NEW YORK (AP) — The bond, James Bond, market is heating up.
For nearly a yr, Denis Villeneuve has been on faucet to direct the next 007 installment, the first since Daniel Craig exited the role. Producers Amy Pascal and David Heyman have been lined up since March 2025. The massive lacking piece: Who’ll play the man in the tux?
The casting course of — the first that isn’t being overseen by the Broccoli household, which relinquished creative control to Amazon MGM final yr — has been usually secretive. That hasn’t stopped rampant hypothesis about who’ll be the next Bond.
The oddsmakers have a couple of favorites, amongst them Callum Turner, Jacob Elordi and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. But our process right here, as we speak, is to open up the prospects. This is the first time in additional than twenty years {that a} new Bond is being minted. We should have some enjoyable with it, and forged a large web.
So let’s take a martini shaker to the favorites. Here are some out-of-the-box candidates, ranked from least believable to kinda official.
Steve Buscemi
What? Are you telling me you wouldn’t watch Steve Buscemi as James Bond? It would immediately change into the most anticipated film of the yr. The persons are already clamoring for it. If the pope can be American, so can also James Bond.
Sandra Hüller
It’s already change into fairly clear that there isn’t a lot Hüller can’t do. She can do the most severe of dramas (“The Zone of Interest,” “Anatomy of a Fall”) and a variety of comedies (the current “Project Hail Mary,” “Toni Erdmann”). More than most film stars as we speak, she has the seductive, lethal melancholy of Bond — plus she’d ship an important 007 karaoke scene.
Hugh Laurie
Producers reportedly need a youthful Bond, however an older one may truly give them extra new floor to cowl. This is a franchise previous 50, so a 007 of their 60s is hardly farfetched. Laurie has dabbled in spy thrillers (most notably the John le Carré adaptation “The Night Manager”). We know from “House” that he has a terrific bedside method in life-or-death conditions. And he’s a comic book genius who can put on a swimsuit.
Tony Hale
Again: You’re telling me you wouldn’t watch this? Buster Bluth, Forky, James Bond. It’s a seamless trajectory.
Dominic West
West auditioned for Bond when Craig was finally forged, however I don’t see why the 56-year-old isn’t nonetheless a superb possibility. He has the allure and the roguish smile that will make him a official inheritor to Sean Connery. He’s performed a British spy earlier than, in, um, Rowan Atkinson’s “Johnny English Reborn.” And we already affiliate him, because of “The Wire,” with actual police work. Imagine if an actor from “The Wire” acquired the function and it wasn’t Idris Elba.
Aaron Pierre
OK, now we’re getting severe. I believe Pierre, the 31-year-old British actor, is such an overwhelmingly pure match that I’m stunned he hasn’t already been forged. As a lot as I’d prefer to see some much less apparent candidates (I didn’t even point out Melissa McCarthy or Sacha Baron Cohen), Pierre’s suave poise makes him an excellent James Bond. Watch “Rebel Ridge” and inform me he doesn’t have all the elements. Unless Buscemi steps ahead, Pierre should get the function.
