GB News' Entertainment Editor explains why it may be time to break with tradition when it comes to finding the next 007
Christopher Nolan's rather bizarre reimagining of Homer's The Odyssey hit cinemas this week. A big-budget epic that's garnered plenty of column inches in no small part thanks to some questionable casting choices.
But my other half wasn't keen. Instead, a live-action remake of Moana was showing at the same time. As a Disney fan, it's much more up her street.
We watched the low-budget horror Obsession a few weeks back - which was fantastic - and before that, there were trips to watch Spielberg's Disclosure Day, The Devil Wears Prada 2, Undertone, and perhaps most forgettably, the Michael Jackson biopic, Michael.
All of this to say that when I mused whether to spend upwards of £40 to watch The Rock cosplay as some sort of Polynesian Thor, I realised I hadn't actually been genuinely excited about a cinematic release for some time.
And I began to wonder what would reignite the spark I have always held for the dying industry that is cinema.
Before long, a certain tuxedo with a licence to kill crept into my thinking, coinciding with the fact that casting director Debbie McWilliams hit headlines this week for insisting the next 007 should remain "white and male".
Daniel Craig is my Bond. Casino Royale hit screens as I was starting secondary school, and his consistency as a stellar 007 right up to 2021's No Time to Die was admirable.
Admittedly, I haven't binged every single Bond in the collection. Like many millennials, I fear the visual effects of the 1960s compared to today's CGI may take me out of the action somewhat. I mean, I audibly laughed when first watching George Lazenby's ski shoot-out in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
But whoever the next man is to follow in the footsteps of Craig, Pierce Brosnan, Timothy Dalton, Roger Moore, and Sean Connery - oh, and one-hit wonder Lazenby, of course - I do not doubt that spark will return in a blaze of glory akin to an Argentinian in injury time.
Speculation has been rife for years as to who it will be, but McWilliams has insisted bosses at Amazon MGM shouldn't veer far from the blueprint that has made Ian Fleming's spy franchise the timeless success it has been.
"Ian Fleming wrote a character, and that’s the character that stays," the casting director behind 14 Bond films told Variety. "That’s what I think. I mean, other people might think otherwise, but I don’t think that."
McWilliams isn't alone in her thinking. Actor Idris Elba found himself in the news earlier this year after urging Bond bosses not to go "woke" with the casting of Bond, ruling himself out of the running in the process.
And former Bond producer Barbara Broccoli echoed pleas for Bond to remain male, although she encouraged the door to be left open when it came to Bond's race.
In 2020, she told Variety: "James Bond can be of any colour, but he is male. I believe we should be creating new characters for women - strong female characters.
"I'm not particularly interested in taking a male character and having a woman play it. I think women are far more interesting than that."
As we enter a seventh(!) year of waiting since Craig announced his departure, the shortlist has been whittled down to a number of recognisable, chiselled-jawed, prospective spies.
Callum Turner is the hottest tipped with bookies, while the likes of Jacob Elordi, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, Harris Dickinson, and Louis Partridge also remain in the conversation.
All of them fulfill the "white and male" conditions set out by McWilliams.
But none of them would hold a candle to the man I believe would excel as MI6's deadliest export.
That man is Rege-Jean Page. The man who made every period drama fan weak at the knees thanks to his turn as the sultry-toned Simon Basset in Netflix's Bridgerton.
The 38-year-old British-Zimbabwean actor was hotly tipped for the role soon after Craig's exit, but backing has cooled since then. An unwarranted trend in my eyes.
Page was born in London before he and his family moved to Zimbabwe for his school years.
Upon discovering ambitions to become an actor, he returned to the UK aged 14 and joined the National Youth Theatre.
Two years on, he eventually enrolled at Drama Centre London and graduated in 2013, before appearing in several British TV shows, including Casualty, Waterloo Road, and Fresh Meat.
Los Angeles soon beckoned and the rest is history. He has become one of the most sought-after names in Hollywood.
But it's not just his dashing good looks and ripped physique that make him an ideal candidate for Bond. He's actually a bl**dy good actor to boot.
He has spy film experience thanks to 2025's Black Bag, where he did more than hold his own against Michael Fassbender and a former 007 in Brosnan, and it was action sequences galore in 2022's The Gray Man opposite Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans.
He defies McWilliams' blueprint as a mixed-race actor. Should it matter? Not one iota.
I am not one at all for rewriting history or reinventing the wheel to appease modern audiences (see the aforementioned Odyssey).
And the evidence is there to suggest more often than not, so-called "race-swapping" or "gender-swapping" results in box office flops. Just ask Snow White and her seven... whatever Disney decided you were allowed to call them.
But with Page as Bond, I don't see that happening at all. It doesn't enter my thinking that the man behind a Bridgerton Duke couldn't pull off Britain's most deadly agents.
Page's casting would not be a token gesture or evidence of virtue-signalling; it would be Bond execs realising he's the best man for the job.
I implore 007 decision-makers to thank McWilliams for her work, but for this new era of Bond, admit it's time to turn the page and welcome in a new chapter.
