Ever since Daniel Craig announced he was tired of playing the iconic spy James Bond speculation has been rife as to who would replace him.
We heard rumours that Tom Hiddleston was in the running, that producers wanted Poldark’s Aidan Turner, in fact, it got so silly you could name any age-appropriate British actor and chances are there were rumours they’d be the next person to slip on Bond’s iconic tuxedo.
One name kept cropping up time and time again though in relation to James Bond, none other than the magnificently talented, Idris Elba.
The Independent is now reporting that Bond producer Barbara Broccoli has decided the time is right for a non-white actor to take up 007’s license to kill and that Elba is the frontrunner for the role.
Broccoli’s reported to have made these remarks while in conversation with director Antoine Fuqua, and Fuqua believes this progressive move will happen sooner rather than later.
Fuqua said:
Idris could do it if he was in shape. You need a guy with physically strong presence. Idris has that.
Rumours of Idris first playing Bond first began in 2014 when emails between high profile Sony Pictures executives were leaked by hackers.
The then co-chair of Sony, Amy Pascal, reportedly told a colleague over email that ‘Idris should be the next Bond’.
In the past Elba’s made comments that he’d like to play Bond but over time he seemed to lose enthusiasm for the role because people were politicising a ‘black Bond’ so much.
He told The Telegraph back in 2015:
It feels like I’m campaigning and I’m not. At first, it was harmless – oh, I know, wouldn’t it be great? – and now it’s started off racial debates.
I’m probably the most famous Bond actor in the world and I’ve not even played the role. Enough is enough. I can’t talk about it any more.
In a later interview with The New York Times, he went so far as to say that it bothered him people were so preoccupied with having a black Bond and not in seeing Idris Elba play Bond.
In recent years the Luthor star has distanced himself from the role even further, saying he thinks it might be time for a woman to play 007 telling Variety that it’s time to ‘do something different’.
He said:
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?
Should Idris choose to take up the mantle of Bond he’ll have to wait his turn because Daniel Craig’s still expected to make one more outing as the iconic British spy.
The Trainspotting director Danny Boyle has been brought in to work on Bond 25 (don’t worry they’ll work on a catchier title) and it’s reported he’s currently working on a script with his long-term collaborator John Hodge.
In a statement, Broccoli called Boyle ‘exceptionally talented’ and that they were excited to see Daniel Craig in his fifth outing as James Bond.
James Bond 25 will be released in the UK on October 25, 2019, and in the US two weeks later, on November 8.
More of a concept than a journalist, Tom Percival was forged in the bowels of Salford University from which he emerged grasping a Masters in journalism.
Since then his rise has been described by himself as ‘meteoric’ rising to the esteemed rank of Social Editor at UNILAD as well as working at the BBC, Manchester Evening News, and ITV.
He credits his success to three core techniques, name repetition, personality mirroring, and never breaking off a handshake.