Former Bond girl Rosamund Pike from Die Another Day kind of has a point why the next Bond shouldn’t be a woman. Of course if there’s a woman out there that’s the offspring of Bond, it could happen, there might be a little more groundwork that could be laid for such an emergence. But one thing is certain, simply switching James Bond to a female spy would be something that might have more dire implications than many people might realize. It’s not so much that it couldn’t be done, it’s more like it shouldn’t since to be quite honest the figure of James Bond has been masculine ever since his creation and to just flip the script at this point would mean the entire franchise would have to change. It’d be kind of disturbing and a little odd to see a misogynistic female agent that acts just like the original Bond. Of course that probably wouldn’t happen but the idea of Bond being anything other than what fans expect him to be is in a way kind of trampling on the original idea.
Several movies have experienced this drawback as they’ve changed up the main characters from what people were used to. It’s happened in TV as well as movies if you can recall that Roseanne had two different Becky’s, Hannibal had a different Clarice Starling than Silence of the Lambs, The Dark Tower had a much different Roland than people were expecting, and even Schwarzenegger to Glover in Predator was a big change. Those are all different circumstances of course but they still serve the point that changing an important character simply because people want to see something is not always the best option. Rosamund Pike had this to say:
“I’d just say write a new story. I mean James Bond is a character that Ian Fleming created. I mean, you know of course the brand has become bigger and whatever, but take one of the Bond Girls and give her her own story. I think the character of James Bond is a man. He is really. But I mean, to have such a character in a completely independent series, why should a woman get sort of sloppy seconds? Why should she have once been a man and now it has to be played by a woman? Why not make a kick-ass female agent in her own right?”
That makes a lot of sense really considering that there are plenty of Bond girls that could be tapped for a story or two, or more. It could even become a new series of films that follows one Bond girl after another, since those that are still among the living were pretty tough in some cases. Even if the original actresses aren’t able to take up the parts any longer it’d be no big deal to find a younger woman that’s able to fulfill the role and get the movie going.
Seriously, it’s time to start thinking about going forward, not just taking a step back to regroup.
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