Producers "Leaning Towards" Idris Elba As The Next James Bond

ESQUIRE – …new reports indicate that James Bond producers are starting to lean toward the idea of Elba taking the role. As the Independent reports:

Director Antoine Fuqua revealed the details of a conversation with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, in which she said “it is time” for a non-white actor to take on the iconic role. Fuqua discussed who might be next in the running with Broccoli, who’s certain the progressive move “will happen eventually”, with Idris Elba a reported frontrunner for the role.

It’s not much, but it’s a good sign that Bond producers are at least leaning in the right direction. (Esquire has reached out to the producers for comment and will post an update if we hear back.) What’s interesting though, is that when it comes to the topic of Bond, Elba’s response is often that no one is really considering him for the role. This certainly changes things.

Huge Bond guy.  Bond movies are right behind Mission Impossible in my best movie franchises.  And the fact that both are only getting better with age is awesome.  Daniel Craig stepped in and basically revitalized the franchise, but I even loved the shitty Pierce Brosnan movies, kind of all in the “so-bad-they-were-absolutely-amazing” sense. The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day all hover right around the 50% splattered tomato line on Rotten but I’ll still watch them start to finish every single time they pop up on some daily weekend TV with commercials. Kind of a shock to the system when Casino Royale and Skyfall came in and were like, actually good movies, and Spectre kept the trend going.

And now we’re maybe about to have the best Bond development yet…

People have been talking about this for like 4 years, and every time, Elba says it’s not gonna be him, he has no interest, they have no interest, it should be a woman, yadda yadda.  Plus he’s 45, and they like guys to be able to sign on for 3-4 movies – although Liam Neeson is like 70 and my dude is still doing 2 hour fight scenes to save his family every year.

Also, it shouldn’t be Idris Elba because “it is time” for a black guy or because it “needs to be” progressive.  It should be Idris Elba because he’s the most bad ass motherfucker in Hollywood.  I don’t give a fuck if James Bond is white, black, green, yellow, purple, magenta, apricot, artichoke, army green, aquamarine, atomic tangerine, barbie pink, coyote brown, cyan cobalt, cyan azure, cyan-blue azure, daffodil, dandelion, or english violet.   If you got the Bond swag you got the Bond swag.