Over at the Daily Mail, Sebastian Shakespeare (what a name!) offers an article and a Q&A to Barbara Broccoli, producer of the James Bond films, concerning who might be in line for the role after Daniel Craig…

Next James Bond Could Be Black Or A Woman, Says 007 Producer

Nowadays, the idea of changing the gender, race, age, etc. etc. on long established characters (film or novel/story) is at least somewhat in vogue.

One of the earlier attempts at doing so was the film version of The Wild Wild West, a TV series which featured Robert Conrad in the titular role as secret agent James West…

…and the film version featured Will Smith in the role…

In the case of the movie, it was bad no matter who played the title role, but in this case, the changing of the character’s race was even more troublesome given the time frame the TV show/film exists in (ie post Civil War America).  To be very blunt: It was difficult to accept the idea of a black man, dressed to the hilt and obvious to anyone who looks his way, could somehow walk around post Civil War America and function successfully as a secret agent.

Nonetheless, I’m not against the idea of changing long established characters, so long as the end result is positive.

We are dealing with entertainment after all and the ultimate judge of success in a movie, book, or story is how audiences react to it.

In the case of James Bond, I feel the article is a little… misleading.  This is the important stuff from the article:

(Barbara Broccoli) was asked if we could expect to see a female Bond or a black 007.

‘These films tend to reflect the times so we always try to push the envelope a little bit,’ she replied. ‘Anything is possible.

‘Right now it’s Daniel Craig, and I’m very happy with Daniel Craig, but who knows what the future will bring?’

So, basically, she gives a non-answer here.  Sure, in the future, there might be a (insert pertinent race/sex/gender here) James Bond but right now we’re focused on Daniel Craig.

So there’s less to the article than appears… except for one thing.  Toward the end of the article we get this quote from Roger Moore concerning who should play the character:

Sir Roger, who died in May at the age of 89, told this newspaper in 2015: ‘I have heard people talk about how there should be a lady Bond or a gay Bond.

‘But they wouldn’t be Bond for the simple reason that wasn’t what Ian Fleming wrote.

‘It is not about being homophobic or, for that matter, racist — it is simply about being true to the character.’

He does make one very salient point regarding the idea of changing a well-established character’s sex/race/age:  Should we be so quick to do these changes with characters that were never written by their creators in this manner?

One should, at some point, respect the original author’s vision.

Perhaps a better option would be to create a new character?