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The next James Bond should be British, Pierce Brosnan has said, as a leaked memo reportedly confirmed the character will remain a man.
The Irish actor, who played the spy from 1995 to 2002, also said it was the “right decision” for creative control of the franchise to be handed to Amazon-MGM, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.
“It takes great courage for them to let go,” said Brosnan.
“I hope that [Amazon] handles the work and the character with dignity and imagination and respect.”
The film series was sold to the streaming giant for £770m, with a deal being struck in February for Bond’s custodians Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson to take a step back, after reported tensions over the spy saga’s future.
The pair, who oversaw the franchise for decades as the children of its original producer, Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, will continue as co-owners but will have no creative control, following fierce rows over 007’s future.
These included Barbara Broccoli branding Amazon executives “fucking idiots”, according to the Wall Street Journal, over ideas to expand the franchise with spin-offs and a TV series.
After the deal was agreed, Wilson said he and Broccoli had been “very reluctant to delegate” the intellectual property to a television series, with Broccoli adding: “It’s not something we’ve ever wanted to do.”
It may be a sign that there is set to be movement on a new Bond film, four years on from Daniel Craig’s final appearance.
While there is no script, director or lead actor in place, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James and James Norton are all favourites for the role.
Mail Online reported a source from Amazon that said the actor “has to be British or from the Commonwealth – and he has to be male”.
The news of the takeover received mixed reactions from fans online, with some fearing that the US brand would choose a non-white actor to play the secret agent or write him as gay in a future film.
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Despite Bond being arguably the campest spy franchise – an attribute triumphantly parodied in the Austin Powers movies – Brosnan previously said Broccoli would not allow a gay 007 in her lifetime, though he welcomed the idea.
Others, meanwhile, were optimistic about the potential for progress, hoping Amazon would sanitise the famously misogynist character once referred to as a “boring, tasteless rapist” by Esquire magazine, in an effort to appeal to younger audiences who might be more likely to label the character “cringe” rather than “cool”.
There have only been five Bond films in the last 23 years, and the series has faced competition from more modern, fast-paced action characters such as John Wick and Jason Bourne.
Brosnan said: “History has been passed on and I’m very proud to have been part of the history and the legacy of Bond and the movies that I made with Barbara and Michael.
“That we moved the needle, that we brought it back to life. It had been dormant [for] six years and GoldenEye was such a success that it continued and went from strength to strength … You know, everything changes, everything falls apart, and I wish them well.”
