Casting Lashana Lynch As 007 Lets ‘James Bond 25’ Have Its Cake And Eat It Too – Forbes

Casting Lashana Lynch As 007 Lets ‘James Bond 25’ Have Its Cake And Eat It Too

If reports from The Daily Mail are to be believed, then (as correctly predicted a month ago by Fangoria editor-in-chief and Bond super-nerd Phil Nobile Jr.) the 25th James Bond movie will indeed introduce Lashana Lynch as the new 007. Since Ms. Lynch is A) a woman and B) black, that’s something of a big deal. Now the catch is that she won’t be playing James Bond. No, that’s still Daniel Craig’s gig for at least one more movie. However, the actual designation of “007” will be for Lynch’s Nomi, thus giving us our first black female 007.

The plot of the Cary Fukunaga-directed flick will involve Bond having retired from MI6 after the events of Spectre. When he returns, thanks to a request from Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter, he discovers that Ms. Lynch’s character is the newest agent to get the 007 handle. There is a long history, both in the James Bond movies and the original Ian Fleming novels, of various agents in the “00” program getting their respective number, and then someone else getting that number when that agent retires or dies in the line of duty. So, no, this isn’t remotely out-of-the-ordinary.

Whether or not it was intended to be a theatrical surprise or whether we were going to find out in the first trailer presumably dropping before Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, it’s out there now. It’s both a brazenly cynical and deliciously brilliant way to answer nearly 30 years of hand-wringing about the 007 character being played by someone who isn’t a white guy. This conversation isn’t new, as even at least as far back as 1993 the media was pontificating about Timothy Dalton’s potential replacement being someone like Sharon Stone or Wesley Snipes.

Lashana Lynch will not be the featured star of the next 007 flick. Daniel Craig is still James Bond, a name which is not a code name for various agents who have saved the world for queen and country since 1962. This doesn’t mean that Lynch will be getting her own franchise once this next movie closes the book on the Craig-era James Bond saga. This moment allegedly takes place early on in the film, and for all we know it’ll be a glorified cameo. I’m assuming they aren’t dumb enough to kill her off, who can say?

I might cynically argue that the plot point, allegedly part of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s script polish, is EON and MGM saying “Hey, you want your cookie, here’s your cookie, now let’s get back to Craig eating his cake.” Yes, it’s a little dispiriting that this (at best) supporting role in a white male-driven action franchise will get more attention and huzzahs than the likes of Idris Elba’s Bastille Day, Charlize Theron’s Atomic Blonde or Blake Lively’s upcoming The Rhythm Section (which is produced by EON as well). However, it’s still a valid story beat that will make folks happy.

I hope this doesn’t mean that Naomie Harris’ Moneypenny will get short shrift. Boy-friendly franchises have a history of offering underused female characters and then introducing a new “super awesome” female character in the sequel while still stiffing the last film’s Smurfette. Think Star Trek Beyond which introduced Sofia Boutella’s Jaylah while still not giving Zoe Saldana’s Uhura much to do. Skyfall ended with James Bond, Moneypenny, M (Ralph Fiennes) and Q (Ben Wishaw) were capable of being in the field, a status quo that Spectre only somewhat exploited. But this is speculation and conjecture.

Casting Lynch (who played Maria Rambeau in Captain Marvel) is a clever ploy to more-or-less give folks (or at least Film Twitter) what they claim to crave while not really making any broad or sweeping changes to the main character (think Pepper Potts wearing the Iron Man suit for 20 seconds in Iron Man 3). It also somewhat justifies James Bond remaining James Bond (even as the world changes around him, per usual), since he won’t be entirely representative of the 00 program. It’s a smart play, and Michael G. Wilson, Barbara Broccoli and friends deserve a tip of the hat.

James Bond 25 has its share of heavy lifting to do. It has to repent after Spectre while being a sequel to that disaster (Léa Seydoux’s Dr. Madeleine Swann and Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld are allegedly returning). It also has to find a way to exist in a new world now essentially being run by a cabal of proverbial 007 super villains and where the mere idea of the good guys defeating the bad guys may be an implausible fantasy. It also has to give Daniel Craig what Pierce Brosnan, Roger Moore and Sean Connery didn’t get: a satisfying swan song.

Giving us our first black female 007, even in a sneaky roundabout fashion, will get at least some folks in the press on this movie’s side even amid the behind-the-scenes melodrama and seeming challenges with crafting what will be the first new 007 flick in 4.5-years. That’s the second-longest gap ever between installments between only License to Kill (July of 1989) and GoldenEye (November of 1995). It will be the first James Bond movie released in the Netflix/VOD era. If it’s not good, folks may decide to stay home and introduce their kids to The Spy Who Loved Me.

The still untitled James Bond 25 will open on April 3, 2020 in the United Kingdom and April 8 in North America. That’ll be the 56-year-anniversary of the domestic release of From Russia With Love, which is also the last time a James Bond flick (not counting Never Say Never Again) opened outside of the summer or Thanksgiving/Christmas season. I hope the movie doesn’t pile on the “Gasp… she’s a woman… and she’s black!” shtick. The only adverse reaction I want to see from Daniel Craig’s James Bond is offense that MI6 didn’t treat him like Michael Jordan and retire his number.

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