Aug 27, 2025 6 min read

JAMES BLAND

Maybe I should reserve judgment until the new Bond comes out (which won’t be for a few years yet), but I was dismayed to hear that Stephen Knight has been recruited to write the script, given that I’ve not enjoyed any of his previous work. His credits include the turgid Peaky Blinders, a woeful version of Great Expectations for the BBC, and co-creating the dreadful game show Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?, which should be considered a cultural war crime.

I suppose fans of his work will point to Locke, Eastern Promises, and Dirty Pretty Things (mid-range fare) as reasons enough to justify his appointment. But for me, this feels like a very safe choice—one that won’t explore any dynamic or interesting directions in which to take the 60-plus-year franchise. I hope to be proved wrong.

And though it gets me into a lot of trouble with fellow film lovers, I'm equally unenthralled by the prospect of Denis Villeneuve directing as (for me) he belongs to the IKEA, cardboard-tasting coterie of modern directors who are routinely overpraised: Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ari Aster, and Jordan Peele. I can barely distinguish between most of these, as they all seem like wannabes masquerading as geniuses. Hate me all you want, but I just don't dig their work, with the possible exception of Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 (in parts) and the first half of PTA's Magnolia (Altman-lite and basically a remake of Short Cuts [1993]).

Perhaps I'm being grossly unfair, but there's also a residual fear that, because Jeff Bezos and Amazon MGM Studios have co-opted the franchise from Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson, the new Bond project might be facing a Rings of Power scenario—that absolute magnum opus of disastrous creative slop proportions based on J.R.R. Tolkien's world that Bezos threw a billion dollars at. Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, though, and should just wait for the finished project. It may even be a masterpiece.

And, of course, though it may seem hypocritical and contradictory—given that I’ve dabbled in writing a few Bond fan-fiction attempts for Digital Renegade—I’m not actually a huge fan of the Bond character, or indeed of most of the films in the franchise. My exceptions would be Dr. No, Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Casino Royale. Overall, though, I find 007 a pretty flimsy franchise—the secret agent equivalent of Coronation Street. Still, it’s impossible to deny that, regardless of its overall artistic quality, Bond acts as a sort of avatar for Great Britain’s collective id (a bit like Coronation Street). There is no doubt he serves as a psychological barometer for our national self-esteem—and, judging by where we were left with Craig’s final outing, we’re pretty much cooked.

One of the other things that makes Bond films especially frustrating (with the possible exceptions of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Casino Royale, and Skyfall) is that the jeopardy rarely feels relatable or remotely serious—perhaps intentionally so. It would be nice though, for once, to see Bond in a situation where he feels genuinely in trouble or existentially threatened.

Personally (as I’ve explored in some of my own fan fiction for Digital Renegade—see below), I believe the best Bond movie would involve him discovering that the British government, working in cahoots with the Royal Family, has been infiltrated either by foreign interests or captured by ideology (communism), forcing Bond to realise that the enemy he serves (MI6), as an extension of those institutions’ corruption, is already deep within the 'castle walls.'

Throw in some denial about his sex addiction at group therapy and his feeble attempt at abstinence and you have a winner.

Either that, or give him IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) so that he has to wrap up his missions more efficiently, with less of the rumination that plagued the Craig series and compromises his effectiveness in the bedroom altogether for fear of being caught short. I fear this may be encroaching on Naked Gun territory.

On the other hand, perhaps it’s time for me to stop critiquing others’ efforts altogether and instead resurrect Dick Barton as a special agent movie franchise.

Anyone got Bezos's phone number?