It’s out with Daniel Craig and in with… well, who? That’s the question that will be preoccupying EON producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson over the coming months. When will the next James Bond be announced? The case against? There’s not a huge buzz about him, though that might just be because nobody’s put him in a tux for a photoshoot just yet. But give it a year or so, and he might just be in the picture. Euphoria's Nate Jacobs is one of the hottest young actors around and the other Aussie Bond George Lazenby has been through a bit of a critical renaissance over the last few years – not least within the Bond universe itself, having been given his flowers about 50 years late in all the nods and references in No Time To Die. So could it be time for another tall man from Down Under to endure a barrage of red-top headlines mashing Bond iconography with laboured puns about kangaroos, shrimps and barbies? That's fairly normal and I'm flattered to be in the category of Brits that people have noticed. The concept of having plans in this moment in history is mildly hilarious. I've given up making them."

The number of times Tom Hardy's been 'announced' as James Bond is getting silly now, but despite him being (along with Idris) the people's choice, we can probably him to bed as a future Bond now we know it'll be a thirty-something actor. Of course, Broccoli previously stated that the search for the next James Bond would begin in 2022 after Craig’s dramatic exit prompted speculation about who would become the world’s greatest spy in his wake. After a 2023 spent riding high in both the TV charts – and the music charts, with the tie-in album Aurora – for his role as Billy Dunne in the series about the fictional band Daisy Jones & The Six, Claflin has definitely made the crossover to bonafide star on both sides of the Atlantic. And, perhaps as importantly, he seems like an actor in search of a real calling card role. There are no calling cards more gigantic than Bond, and you’d think that the wet thud with which Dark Phoenix ended the X-Men saga is just about far enough in the rear view mirror for Hoult to consider saddling up in a massive franchise again too. He’d make his own kind of history if he were to get the gig too – Hoult would be the first former child actor to play Bond.In 2017 they were asked to perform at Sir Roger Moore’s official memorial event at Pinewood Studios in front of the who’s who of the British film and TV industry including Sir Michael Caine, Dame Joan Collins and David Walliams.

It's really hard, as whatever I say can become a story," he went on. Very astute. Come on, stop stalling. Give us an answer. "I don't know how to answer."

Royal Mint Six Decades Of 007 Collection

But Boyle still thinks the series has a bright future (even if he doesn’t see himself being involved in it), and he suggested two actors who could take over Daniel Craig in the role. One is Robert Pattinson – someone who has been suggested many times before – and the other is Paapa Essiedu, the award-winning actor from Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You and Alex Garland’s Men. Boyle had seen him perform in the play A Number at the Old Vic a few days previously, and put him forward as a potential candidate. Then again, he was saying that about M Night Shyamalan's famously bobbins The Last Airbender, which would scar anyone. Seemingly out of the blue in November 2022, a new name was on everyone’s lips: Aaron Taylor-Johnson. It’s that time again. One James Bond has handed in his Walter PPK, licence to kill and loyalty card at the MI6 staff caf é , and the process of replacing him is underway

They might well do. But how does it feel to be even considered in that world? What about beyond that? James? Jimmy? And, just for the avoidance of doubt, Idris Elba – the people's champ – has said pretty definitively that it's not in his plans. We’ve tried looking at younger people in the past," Wilson said. "But trying to visualise it doesn’t work. Remember, Bond’s already a veteran. He’s had some experience. He’s a person who has been through the wars, so to speak. He’s probably been in the SAS or something."In late 2022, Broccoli and Wilson finally offered a clear response to the Elba rumors. Broccoli told Variety, "We love Idris. The thing is, it’s going to be a couple of years off. And when we cast Bond, it’s a 10, 12-year commitment. So he’s probably thinking, ‘Do I really want that thing?’ Not everybody wants to do that. It was hard enough getting [Daniel Craig to do it]." Plus, he'd make for an excellent Bond ambassador across the pond thanks to the fact of his transatlanticness. Despite sounding like literally any boy you'd bump into in an All Bar One in Guildford, Garfield was born in Los Angeles and the hype/palaver/whatever around the first American Bond could be a very interesting angle. And he'd be the first Jewish Bond too. I think these movies reflect the time they are in, and there’s a big, big road ahead reinventing it for the next chapter and we haven’t even begun with that," she said. Think about it. He’s 33. He can do the action stuff, as we saw when he was spraying chrome paint onto his teeth on Mad Max: Fury Road. He’s been in a couple of arty favourites in The Favourite and True History of the Kelly Gang. He’s a very different physical specimen to Daniel Craig, stringy and slightly elfin rather than butch and chunky, and that could be a bit of a draw to the Bond suits who’ll likely be keen to draw a line between the post-Bourne Bond years and whatever the new one turns into. The post-Marvel Bond years? The post- Avatar 2 Bond years? The post- F9 Bond years? Who knows. He's taken to talking about Bond with a breezy nonchalance: "it’s lots of quite fun and bemusing media coverage," he told Variety in June 2023. "There’s nothing concrete behind it."