The First Step To Launching The Next James Bond Film Isn't What We Assumed

The James Bond film franchise has been a regular cinematic staple for 60 years. Though novelist Ian Fleming originally created the famed superspy the MI6 agent has since grown into one of the most well-known and recognizable characters in popular culture. While Bond has already been portrayed by major actors like Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, and Roger Moore, the question on most fans' minds today is who will play the character next.

The most recent actor to play 007 has been Daniel Craig, who portrayed the spy across five films from 2006 to 2021. Now with Craig having exited the franchise, speculation has been running rampant over who the next James Bond will be, with everyone from Idris Elba to Tom Holland being suggested for the iconic role (via Sports Betting Dime). Still, Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson have a different problem they want to solve before they cast a new 007.

Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson sat down with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss the future of the James Bond franchise, and the duo revealed that they're more concerned with who will be the villain for the next entry in the 007 film series than who will be playing the globe-trotting superspy himself.

"It's hard to know. We always sit down with our writers, and we start by thinking about what is the world afraid of? We start by thinking about, 'Who's the Bond villain?'" Broccoli explained. "We try to focus on that as the sort of uber story, and then we want to also look at Bond's emotional life, and what he'll be facing personally that he hasn't had to deal with before," she went on. 

With the larger-than-life villains being a major staple of the James Bond franchise, it's easy to understand where Broccoli is coming from here. Still, she's definitely noticed all of the speculation surrounding the role of 007 himself and has commented on that as well.

"When we get to a point, like we are now, we have to think about the trajectory of the Bond films and the storylines and where we want to take them. So, that's really the main focus at the beginning," Broccoli said. "Once we have a sense of where we want to go, then we'll start thinking about casting. We're not just casting someone for one film. We're casting someone, hopefully for a decade, at least. It's a big decision to make, and we're nowhere near making that decision," she concluded.