{"id":392298,"date":"2026-01-05T03:08:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T03:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/392298\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T03:08:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T03:08:10","slug":"can-callum-turner-handle-what-it-takes-to-be-the-new-james-bond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/392298\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Callum Turner handle what it takes to be the new James Bond?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wait, what? After four agonising years of nonstop James Bond speculation, they\u2019ve gone and done what? They haven\u2019t given us the first black Bond (sorry, Idris Elba). Neither do we have the first female Bond (Charlize Theron from Atomic Blonde was in the running). And goodbye too to the first black female Bond (see the rumoured favourite Lashana Lynch from No Time to Die) and the first gay Bond (a missed opportunity for Jonathan Bailey from Wicked). No, instead, wait for it, the world\u2019s most beloved spy movie franchise, newly acquired by Amazon for a reported $1 billion, has apparently opted for, well, bland \u2014 James bland. <\/p>\n

Callum Turner, Dua Lipa\u2019s fianc\u00e9, has apparently snagged the most coveted role in blockbusters, one that\u2019s destined to make him a multimillionaire and secure him a revered place in cinematic history. Or at least he has according to \u201csources close to\u201d the actor, who tittle-tattled to The Mail on Sunday about how Turner, for months now a Bond frontrunner, had spent the holiday season \u201cblabbing all over town\u201d that he had been officially confirmed as the new 007. The source added that it\u2019s \u201cthe worst-kept secret going\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also, on the surface, a seemingly uninspired choice, and something that feels like it\u2019s been approved at the highest levels of Amazon \u2014 its boss, Jeff Bezos, is reportedly a \u201cmassive fan\u201d of 007 and is \u201cclosely involved in all aspects of taking Bond forward\u201d. Because that\u2019s exactly who you want at the helm of the 26th instalment in a creatively ambitious and innately cinematic movie series. The Amazon guy. Honestly, these tech bros, is there anything they can\u2019t do? What\u2019s next, Tim Cook from Apple directing Leonardo DiCaprio in an Oscar-worthy biopic?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Pierce Brosnan: \u2018Where would James Bond spend Christmas? I don\u2019t care!\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Point being that, from my perspective, Turner has so far proved himself, well, just a fine actor. Fine, alas, as in shoulder-shrugging competence. Just fine. Whatever. In the 2020 Austen adaptation Emma he played the cad Frank Churchill with a vague one-note inscrutability. In the George Clooney-directed The Boys in the Boat he was a gruff blue-collar rowing ace who was frequently outperformed by his own hair dye. And in the Fantastic Beasts franchise he is seemingly cast as \u201cthe straight guy\u201d, always being outshone by his screen brother Eddie Redmayne\u2019s zany antics. It\u2019s notable too that the Fantastic Beasts movies are produced by David Heyman, who has been hired by Bezos to steer the Bond ship, together with the co-producer Amy Pascal and the director Denis Villeneuve. Maybe that lot see something in Turner that the camera has yet to reveal to this film critic.<\/p>\n

Personally, I\u2019d have gone for Josh O\u2019Connor, a former Prince Charles from TV\u2019s The Crown who, like Turner, is 35, and currently delivering the kind of performances (from Challengers to Wake Up Dead Man) that suggest his Bond could have been a seductive yet highly conflicted creation. Or Florence Pugh, a frequent Marvel assassin, playing a female Bond would have been an ironic, neck-snapping delight. And Bailey would certainly have injected some homoerotic tension into the franchise, capitalising on the bi-curious energy that Daniel Craig flirted with, while flirting with Javier Bardem, in Skyfall.<\/p>\n

All of these actors, however, are too eccentric, it would seem, to be Bond. They are reminiscent also of Daniel Craig, who arrived on to the franchise as the so-called \u201creluctant Bond\u201d. He created a persona, through interviews and public appearances, of the gritty \u201creal\u201d actor who had somehow fallen into gaudy blockbuster territory against his wishes and would nonetheless do his best while the cameras were rolling. Smartest of all, the persona was hard-wired into Craig\u2019s characterisation of Bond, as a globetrotting curmudgeon. In Casino Royale, when famously asked if he\u2019d like his martini shaken or stirred, his Bond snaps, \u201cDo I look like I give a damn?\u201d Craig maintained this dyspeptic pose assiduously throughout his five-movie tenure, even claiming in 2015 that he would rather \u201cslash my wrists\u201d than do another Bond film, right before securing a rumoured $25 million to do No Time to Die. <\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/a><\/p>\n

And so the new Bond clearly had to be a break with that tradition. Why choose a complicated actor when you can have a compliant one with an internationally famous pop star girlfriend who can do the soundtrack? Yes, according to the same loose-lipped \u201csources\u201d, Dua Lipa has \u201cbeen saying she\u2019d love to record the Bond theme\u201d. Just think of the marketing opportunities afforded by that genius idea: the global press tours, the cross-promotional activities, the merchandising tie-ins, the album covers, the product placements and the endless social media memes. <\/p>\n

And the film? We\u2019re way beyond the film here. This is a new iteration of a global mega-brand for the next generation of digitally dwelling consumers. A hardened cynic might suggest that the next wave of Bond products, including rumoured spin-off TV shows, is ultimately about creating phone-filling content for Prime Video. And yet even a hardened cynic can remember the buzz of excitement that surrounded Craig\u2019s casting, in 2005, followed by his then brilliantly rough and revelatory performance in Casino Royale. <\/p>\n

And so maybe the casting of Turner is genius too, and simply acknowledges this new branded behemoth\u2019s need for a blank-slate performer unburdened by reputation who can handle gobsmacking stunts, glamorous locations and huge hell-for-leather finales. Turner may not be a Craig or a Connery for the ages \u2014 right now he sits somewhere amid Timothy Dalton, George Lazenby and Roger Moore \u2014 but on the day, and with the right directorial coaching, he might just produce some deadpan, quip-friendly double-0 magic. At the very least, he\u2019ll be fine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wait, what? After four agonising years of nonstop James Bond speculation, they\u2019ve gone and done what? They haven\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-392298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}