Callum Turner’s turn as James Bond lasted at most a couple of weeks. No sooner had he been enshrined as frontrunner to succeed Daniel Craig, than he was nudged from the DB5 driver’s seat by the latest heir apparent, Jacob Elordi, installed as the new bookies’ favourite after his smouldering, highly profitable performance in Wuthering Heights. Smarting somewhere in the background is Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who seemed locked in for the job a couple of years ago, enjoying the backing of former 007s Pierce Brosnan and George Lazenby, but now seems to have fallen out of favour. And don’t forget the succession of other dead cert Bonds now banished to the back of the odds market: the long-rumoured likes of Tom Hardy and Idris Elba (both now likely to have aged out of the role); Theo James; James Norton; Josh O’Connor; Harris Dickinson; Bridgerton’s Rége-Jean Page; and approximately 5,000 other predominately British actors who have enjoyed box office success/led a successful TV drama/look good in a tuxedo.
On and on the hunt goes. Five years after Craig’s final outing, one that left absolutely no wriggle room for his return, and not far off a year since Denis Villeneuve was pegged as director of the next, still-untitled instalment, the next 007 has still not been found. Or if he has (and it seems certain to be a he), everyone involved in the Bond operation is keeping characteristically tight-lipped about it.
It has been an unusually long wait – one presumably stretched out further by the baton-passing of creative control from long time Bond-stewarding siblings Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson to MGM and its parent company, Amazon – though perhaps it is not an entirely unwelcome one. Because the “search for the next Bond” is as crucial a part of the franchise as martinis, femme fatales and product placement; a vital act of self-promotion that keeps Bond in the headlines even when no film is forthcoming.
Battle of the tuxes … Jacob Elordi (left) and Callum Turner. Composite: Valerie Macon/AFP/Alessandra Benedetti/Corbis/Getty Images
The idea of Bond as cinema’s most desirable role has always been carefully cultivated by the franchise’s stewards. Stories of the A-listers (Paul Newman, James Brolin, Mel Gibson, and other famous names) who were approached or screen-tested for 007 have become part of the Bond lore, as have the lengths that producers went to to find the right man for the job. The very first Bond film was preceded by a contest, announced in the Daily Express, to find the man to play its title character. Among the qualities required for competitors was a height of six feet, an English accent and “a determined chin”. The winner, London model Peter Anthony, definitely looked the part, but his lack of acting chops led longtime Bond producer Cubby Broccoli and Eon Productions to look to more established figures. As would become a running tradition whenever a new Bond was sought, there were contrasting views over what sort of characteristics were required: his creator Ian Fleming prioritised “suaveness”; Broccoli wanted “a ballsy guy”. Broccoli won out, and Sean Connery was hired.
When Connery stepped away from the role for the first time, it was claimed that Broccoli and his co-producer Harry Saltzman auditioned 400 people to be his replacement, before ultimately landing on George Lazenby, a Australian former car salesman who Broccoli and Saltzman spotted looking dashing in an advert for Fry’s Chocolate – unlike with Peter Anthony, it didn’t seem to matter that Lazenby had never delivered a single line before playing Bond. In contrast to Lazenby, Roger Moore’s pre-Bond apprenticeship made a lot more sense: he was already appearing as a similarly smooth character in TV series The Saint. The same could be said of the first choice for Moore’s replacement, Pierce Brosnan, who appeared as a Bond-a-like in US TV detective drama Remington Steele. Famously, when Brosnan was offered the role of 007, NBC who had just cancelled Remington Steele, promptly uncancelled the show due to the surge of attention on its lead, forcing Broccoli to offer the part to Timothy Dalton instead.
It was a to-and-fro that came right at the time in the mid-80s when celebrity and entertainment news was ascendant, covered breathlessly in UK tabloids, US publications like Premiere magazine and on nightly news bulletins. The search for the next Bond had become a media event, one capitalised on by bookmakers, who had started making novelty or ‘special’ bets a bigger part of their offering (kickstarted by William Hill’s much-publicised book on who shot JR): when Dalton officially stepped back from the role in 1994, bookies offered 20-1 on Kenneth Branagh, 25-1 on Lenny Henry and 50-1 on Emma Thompson replacing him, though the smart punters would have backed Brosnan at a less generous 2-1.
By the time Brosnan (reluctantly) departed the role, the hoopla around finding his successor had intensified yet again thanks to the rise of the internet. Chatrooms were abuzz with speculation, piggybacked on by the tabloids: reportedly in the Eon offices there was reportedly a list of every potential actor tipped for the role by newspapers, 72 in total, including “a dwarf and two women”. The studio’s ultimate casting of Daniel Craig, announced via a dramatic Thames speedboat stunt, was bold and contentious – a gruff, blond-headed stepchild in a family of charming brunettes – and prompted negative headlines and internet boycott campaigns.
Of course Wilson and Broccoli were proved resoundingly right in their pick. A subject of high-profile mockery in the 90s and early 00s, Bond has been restored to event-cinema status by the wild success of the Craig years. Which is presumably why such caution is being exercised in finding his replacement by the franchise’s current handlers. They can probably take their time – the breathless hype machine will ensure that no one will lose interest in Bond any time soon.
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