Credit: Far Out / Georges Biard
Mon 11 May 2026 18:15, UK
An iconic movie character doesn’t have to be universally popular, since many despised figures have found themselves woven into the fabric of pop culture history. That said, Ron Howard revealed that he had a major issue with one of the silver screen’s most legendary heroes, for one major reason.
Hannibal Lecter murders people and eats them, but that didn’t stop Anthony Hopkins from making him an icon. Christoph Waltz’s Hans Landa is an irredeemable, evil man, but that didn’t stop him, either, and the same can be said for Norman Bates, Nurse Ratched, Alex DeLarge, and many more besides.
All of them are terrible, terrible people, but they’re all iconic nonetheless. Of course, it’s a lot easier to identify with a hero than a villain, but when it comes to a fictional figure who’s been saving the world to the delight of audiences for more than 60 years, Howard couldn’t be less interested in their adventures.
Then again, he’s being a little hypocritical. The two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker’s single biggest bugbear was that globetrotting, expansive, expensive, and spectacle-fuelled blockbusters did absolutely nothing for him as an audience member, which is odd, since he’s made a few of those himself.
“I like actors’ movies, like Cuckoo’s Nest or The Graduate,” Howard offered of his own personal tastes. “I’m not a fan of James Bond.” That’s fair enough, and a lot of people couldn’t care less about 007 or his latest world-saving shenanigans, but he needs to be careful where he’s throwing those stones in that glass house of his.
Ron Howard, the director of Splash, in which a man falls in love with a mermaid, The Da Vinci Code trilogy, in which a professor and a star-studded supporting cast unravel numerous conspiracies, Solo: A Star Wars Story, in which Disney spent nearly $300 million on a sci-fi origin story that nobody asked for, and Willow, in which a farmer and a swordsman defend a baby from a witch, isn’t one for flights of fancy.
Most Bond flicks are grounded in a slightly more tangible reality than those aforementioned pictures, and while it’s never been a secret that One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Graduate are two of the most pronounced influences on Howard’s directorial career, you can’t really make How the Grinch Stole Christmas and then chastise 007 for not placing enough emphasis on ensemble thespianism.
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
He may not be a fan of the franchise, but he is a fan of Idris Elba: we know that much. The former Happy Days stalwart once backed him as his preferred candidate to take up the mantle after Daniel Craig literally went out in a blaze of glory in No Time to Die, but since that’s not going to happen on Denis Villeneuve’s watch, we can presume he’ll be as apathetic toward the next instalment as usual.
Not everyone likes James Bond, but he’s been part of the filmic furniture for six decades, which doesn’t make it any less strange that someone who’s made as many fantastical and fanciful films as Howard would hold a grudge against the suave secret agent for not being the focal point of any so-called “actors’ movies.”
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