Who's Going To Be The Next James Bond?
The tux is empty and the bets are in
It has been five years since Daniel Craig walked off a Norwegian oil platform, bloodied and battered in No Time to Die (2021).
James Bond, the most durable franchise in cinema history, is between lives. Amazon MGM now holds the keys, and Denis Villeneuve and Steven Knight are assembling what could be the most anticipated reboot since Casino Royale.
So: who becomes the eighth 007? Here's where our money (and hope) is.
Callum Turner
The rumours have been loud enough that journalists at the Berlin Film Festival didn't even bother with small talk. They went straight to Bond within minutes of his Rosebush Pruning press conference. Turner smirked and said he wasn't going to comment, which is, frankly, exactly what you'd say if you had the part.
Jacob Elordi
Elordi briefly knocked Turner off the top spot in February, fuelled by reports he'd actually met Villeneuve and the producers, and the internet collectively lost its mind. It's not hard to see why. Saltburn established him as someone who can do beautiful, unsettling, and dangerous all at once. Then del Toro cast him as the Creature in Frankenstein, earning him an Oscar nomination and a Critics' Choice win. His only liability? He's 6'5" and Australian. Bond has historically blended into a crowd. Elordi is the crowd.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson
The newspapers were so sure. He's got the role. Except he didn't. ATJ's case on paper remains strong: Tenet, Bullet Train, Nosferatu, 28 Years Later, The King's Man — the man has essentially been doing unofficial Bond auditions for a decade. Also, Omega recently signed him on as the brand ambassador, so there is a high chance that he is Bond.
Henry Cavill
Cavill has been "the next Bond" since roughly 2004, which is a testament to his presence. Superman, The Witcher, Mission: Impossible — Fallout, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. — he even played the real-life figure who inspired Ian Fleming's creation in The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. If there's a more qualified person on this list who still might not get the part, I'd like to meet them.
Cillian Murphy
Here's the thing about Murphy as Bond that nobody is saying loudly enough: Steven Knight wrote him. Not just Peaky Blinders — the entire arc of Thomas Shelby, one of the most complex, lethal, and interior men in recent television, was crafted by the same writer now building 007. Murphy and Knight just wrapped their latest collaboration, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, with Murphy also serving as a producer. Oppenheimer buried any remaining doubt about his ability to anchor a global blockbuster, and there's something deeply interesting about a Bond built on interior menace.
Riz Ahmed
In his new Prime Video series Bait, Ahmed plays a struggling British-Pakistani actor auditioning to be the next James Bond. Life imitating art, or art processing the absurdity of that conversation?