Pick a Bond, any Bond. You could have Sensitive Bond (James Norton), Bridgerton Bond (Regé-Jean Page), Superman Bond (Henry Cavill), Should-have-been Bond (Idris Elba), Pine-effect Bond (Tom Hiddleston)... Yep, ever since Daniel Craig said in 2015 he’d rather slash his wrists than play 007 again – and especially in the five years since No Time to Die ended his tenure – the pack has been shuffled and reshuffled as often as the blackjack cards in Casino Royale. Six months ago, it was definitely Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Just a few weeks ago, it was Callum Turner, apparently nailed on. Now reports suggest man-of-the-moment Jacob Elordi has met with director Denis Villeneuve and Amazon executives for Bond 26. Suddenly, the Australian looks like the frontrunner.
Let’s call him Heathcliff Bond. His latest film, Wuthering Heights, has just stormed to No 1 at the global box office with $82m in its opening weekend – the biggest worldwide debut of the year, and a timely fillip to his 007 credentials. The Oscar-nominated star of Euphoria, Saltburn, Priscilla, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein is demonstrably bankable – more so, certainly, than Turner. If Elordi can sell toxic Brontë passion to multiplexes, he can sell Bond. Easily.
