My Bond is your Bond
This is an expanded editorial on why I wrote Idris Elba in “007: Heir Apparent” . Please read the script before digging into the commentary below.
I am a lifelong Bond fan. I have seen every film in the series multiple times, and I believe that Bond should belong to everyone (or at minimum every Brit).
I was introduced to Bond through A View To A Kill, Licence To Kill and then Thunderball as a young boy. The non-canonical Never Say Never Again was early as well. Beginning as a smoking, drinking, brawling, and very aggressively seducing, icon of 1960’s maleness, Bond has gone through many changes in fifty years on film. I can find something to love about each movie, even the worst of them. The earliest films flaunted the, still exciting, capabilities of highly-saturated color film and featured space age design sensibilities. The Roger Moore films continued the colorful themes and focused heavily on sex as the “free love” culture came into being.
After “jumping the shark” in the most infamously epic way with “Moonraker” the producers decided to bring Bond back to earth. The Bond films of the 1980s featured a tone that would mesh perfectly with that of Rambo, Commando, and Lethal Weapon. After a six-year absence Bond returned in 1995 with Goldeneye and Pierce Brosnan: Brosnan restored much of the relaxed humor to the character while the script moved only slightly away from the ground-troop-styled scenarios of the eighties. The Brosnan films became increasingly outlandish with each film, though Brosnan remained excellent in the role, until things reached a critical mass with Die Another Day (which was one laser tag fight away from being worse than Moonraker).
With Casino Royale the filmmakers appeared to be responding to the critical backlash for Die Another Day and the financial success of the Bourne films with a haunted, grim, Bond. The Daniel Craig Bond films have been very good films, and I respect that they have tried to create a darker Bond, but it isn’t my Bond.
Why Idris Elba? — As the internet made hay of the “could Idris Elba be Bond?” subject for the past year I became annoyed by the many transparently racist objections to seeing the actor in the role of Bond. I have read and understand the opinions of creators like Stan Lee who object to a black Peter Parker/Spider-man; but the Bond of the films is not a character with a clearly defined childhood and ancestry. He’s British enough to have a British accent and serve in Her Majesty’s Secret Service, nothing deeper need be defined. Having seen Elba in The Wire, Pacific Rim, Thor films, and Luthor, I knew that he had the ability to play any kind of Bond well.
I kept my opinions to myself for several months until my wife, who is a black American, asked me what I thought.
“He can be.” I said.
My wife recounted some of the opinions she had read on the topic both for and against it.
“He’d be great, I can see it in my mind.” I said.
“I could probably write the script myself!” I said.
We went on with our busy lives until SPECTRE was released and a new round of discussion on the topic of Elba as Bond began. Seeing very little commentary that resembled my own opinion, and finding myself with the time to write, I decided to share my vision for a new Bond with the world. I feel my script resolves enough of the logistical and tonal questions that I can ask: why not Idris Elba?
My Bond — Like most people who have caused the Bond films to break box office records by spending their hard-earned cash at the theater: I have not read any of Ian Fleming’s books. I love film noir, horror, and crime stories, so the grittier Bond novels sound good to me… but that isn’t my Bond and I doubt it’s what the general public thinks of when they think of Bond. Pierce Brosnan is my favorite Bond: a perfect combination of believable physicality and the charisma to get away with being tongue-in-cheek.
I’d happily take Brosnan in the role today, but Idris Elba is the obvious heir to the role: Elba can mix physicality with charismatic charm. Note that I have scripted a character completely unlike Elba’s tortured “Luther”; a Bond who can nearly dance through the chaos of the world with a smirk.
I also gave Bond a lighter world than Daniel Craig’s “Haunted Bond”. No torture scene, a more comical villain, and scenery built to play off of Bond in very specific ways. This world revolves around Bond: the lone agent who can save the world time and again. Maybe for Elba’s next mission I’d throw him into harsher climates; but my Bond tends to be prepared, even for a lake of toxic waste.
Why not define Bond’s childhood or ancestry? Bond is an icon. A superhero. A modern myth and pop culture idol cast in 3d printer plastic: ever changing to reflect the audience. Boys and girls of all ethnicities grew up relating to Bond in some way. Bond the blank canvas: a man of vague morals and few deep relationships. Every detail of his personal life or childhood you set in stone moves him one degree away from any person who cannot relate to that detail.
After decades of the “blank canvas” accessibility Skyfall attempted to give us a British Batman: a boy of financial privilege who carried a chip on his shoulder and was driven to hunt evil for a living. Who asked for another Batman?
Allowing myself to be a bit melodramatic, I’ll explain why I personally do not like the origins provided in Skyfall. I grew up in a family that couldn’t afford the time or equipment to ski. Seeing Bond in ski chases was my first exposure to the activity and was initially exciting, but eight Bond ski chases later it became a cold reminder of a luxury I couldn’t know.
First world problem, right? Yet I still allowed myself to enjoy every Bond moment as if I were riding with him. Then Skyfall dropped the bomb: Bond could always afford to ski. This rekindled old feelings of alienation from a childhood among more fortunate kids who skied as they pleased. Bond, even with his personal trauma, was probably the kind of kid I would have envied and shared a mutual contempt with in grade school.
Bond the adult could do anything and it was fine: if I had paid my dues in the government, and was tasked with saving the world, I would expect a blank check for luxuries! …But Bond as one-percenter-kid wish-fulfillment was too much. I couldn’t relate. Fantasy extinguished. Rich kids have enough mythic heroes to look up to: Iron Man, Green Arrow, Richie Rich, Iron Fist,… James Bond could belong to everyone (or at least all people of Britain).
A financial angle for studios to consider: we didn’t do much skiing, and I never set foot within anyone’s “estate”, but we went to the movie theater all the time. Know your audience. This is one reason why people loved “Kingsman: The Secret Service”: anyone could earn the rank of Kingsman on merit alone.
Using the “Bond as code-name” origin you can reconcile the childhood history from Skyfall and SPECTRE as the backstory of just one Bond: leaving the door wide open for all people to project themselves into the role.
