Sure, that theme is relateable to me, but one of the things I really enjoyed about Craig and the recent Bonds have been the fact that they have actually gone back to the original Flemming character, where he was more human with struggles and faults, and wasn't made to appeal to mass markets of PG movie-goers. I disagree with Durbanite and think that the franchise went very shallow and stupid for a while, which is why Craig's entrance was such a refreshing breath of fresh air. I'm bored of the stupid "Moonraker-ish", puns-for-the-sake-of-puns Bond flicks, and appreciate a smarter, in-depth story, not just the flash and gadgets.
Hang on, I didn't mention the quality of the films or scripts at all - I agree that some of them were dreadful, e.g. Moonraker as you mentioned, Die Another Day, The World Is Not Enough, The Spy Who Loved Me were all quite far-fetched and were made over a fairly long time period, indicating two different periods of stupidity in the franchise in terms of scripts. Moonraker, however, pulled in over $300 million at the box office back then in 1979 - simply astronomical numbers when converted into today's money. I completely agree about Craig's entrance as Bond, although my favourite Bond is still Connery. What I said was that the films would still be aimed at the fanboys (and girls) who will pay to see the movie multiple times, so there will likely be *some* of the puns you mentioned and some plot holes. However, I would also like to see more of the smarter stories that you mentioned and I think that a slight overhaul of the writing staff is needed.
Tom Hardy could pull it off, but I only want him to be Bond if he does the Bane voice the whole time.
I'm not against this, but if they did go in this direction I'd like to see the stories reflect it. That's the main problem I had with Skyfall; Craig did a good job portraying an older Bond struggling to prove he was still a viable agent, but the problem was the story of Skyfall was supposed to take place during the beginning of Bond's career.
Tom Hardy could absolutely be smooth enough. The man is fascinating and oozes charisma. His character roles have been all over the place. He'd have no problem with the more physical and action demands, and I think he'd be much more in that brooding, human form that Craig portrayed compared to the snark and cheese of Pierce Brosnan. He also has stage experience. Maybe they could make Bond an Orthodox Jew so he can bring pieces of Alfie Solomons from Peaky Blinders, who is incredible.
Bane's voice was Sean Connery impersonating Darth Vader. That's what I heard, anyway. Tom Hardy or Clive Owen could be Bond, or maybe Christian Bale could pull off the role successfully, but I really don't think Bale would take the bait. And I wouldn't want him to. I still think Bale's best role was Harsh Times. I'm going to be the "bad guy" in the room (once again) and say that James Bond is supposed to be white. You can come up with all kind of excuses, like "'Bond' is only a code name!", but really, he's supposed to be a British secret agent. And I sure as shit wouldn't buy it if director/producers tried to pass off Will Smith as James Bond. Here's the wikipedia write-up of James Bond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond
We've had two English Bonds, One Scottish, One Irish, one Welsh and one Aussie. Obviously the next choice is Mexican.
Man, I love that guy since seeing him portray Mark Anthony in Rome. I even watched the craptastic The Following because he is so engaging. While I don't doubt that Hardy could kill it, I'll vote for Purefoy.
And he can do action. Solomon Kane was a bit of a disapoinment but he was very well-cast as the title character.
I think Craig's comments were slightly tongue in cheek. Remember they got done filming this movie something like a month and a half ago. The shooting schedule was over 7 fucking months (according to wiki). Dude is in virtually every scene. Yeah, I'd be grumpy too. He also sounds like a dick. When they back up a dump truck filled with $20 million, we will see him a fifth and final time. Purefoy is awesome, but he is kind of old. There's probably some dude on a London stage no one over here has heard of who is perfect and will blow everyone's minds. Remember hearing how in the 70s they were courting Burt Reynolds? How goddamn spectacular would The Bandit have been in that role? Not even trying to cover up his southern accent, and laughing in every scene. Random appearances from Dom DeLouise and Charles Nelson Reilly as the villain. Pure gold. "So, uhh, Q *chews gum* how bout that uhh spy car. Hehhh hah hah."
They have black people in Britain who could, you know, become secret agents too. And either Bond is a code name, in which case who cares, or it's all the same character, in which case we're supposed to think all of the actors thus far have been playing the same dude so it's not exactly tough to just assume he's been black this whole time. But really, all of that is beyond the point, it's not a coherent timeline and universe in the first place and the latest Bond has clearly been either a prequel series or straight up reboot so I'm not sure how much Bond in 1966 should matter.
This. It would be great to get someone that nobody's ever heard of to step in and play the role. It seems that they took a bit of a chance by breaking the tried-and-true money making formula with Craig, and that might have emboldened them to take another chance with a relative unknown to play the role. It'll be interesting to see what happens.
How about Eddie Redmayne? That way Bond would have an internal struggle....with AIDS. Hiddleson is great but he seems too slender and his whole acting aura seems better suited to playing malevolent or sleazy characters. He's prime to play a Bond villain. Perhaps a new dude would be best. Aside from being in Flash Gordon Timothy Dalton was fairly unknown when he signed on, and I'm sorry but I thought he made a GREAT Bond, probably the one that Ian Flemming would have been the most pleased with: the right amount of badass womanizer. It's such a shame he had bad scripts to work with in his two films.
Sean Connery was only 32 when Dr. Do came out, so probably 31 when they filmed it. They've been getting them too old since then: Roger Moore is three years older than Sean Connery, and the age for new Bonds seems to have settled in the late 30s. How about this for the next Bond: 30 years old. Make a movie every two years, for the next thirty years. Eventually we'd end up... ...Here. Hiddleston is just screaming to be made into a Bond villain. Timothy Dalton got the shaft. If Pierce Brosnan hadn't been been screwed by NBC, and had played Bond in The Living Daylights and License to Kill, everybody would have bleated "ZOMG BROSNAN IS TEH SUX0RZ!!!!1!!" the way they did with Dalton. Maybe, just maybe if Brosnan had done those two movies and still gone on to do the next four his image might be saved; possibly the same for Dalton, if he had continued after License to Kill. Ending Daniel Craig's tenure with Spectre seems anti-climatic to me. They built a three movie origin story, and in Skyfall I was getting Connery-esque vibes off of Craig that I wasn't in the other two films. It ends (um, spoiler?) with Bond in the office of Ralph Fiennes' male M*, Miss Moneypenny in the outer office, and it seems like we're ready to launch into a reboot of classic Bond. Wait, it's just for one more movie? *=No chauvinism intended. Judi Dench's 17 years = Best M Ever. (googles the spelling of her name...) Wait a minute, she's eighty now?