Amazon MGM Studios is setting final screen tests for the next James Bond as early as Friday, with at least four test offers out and three names expected in front of the camera: Jack Lowden, Callum Turner and Josh O'Connor, according to Deadline.
The spy who kills for a living is about to be vetted like a Fortune 500 CEO. Amazon has run this search since spring. Casting director Nina Gold was announced in May, the first round of auditions happened in August, and the shortlist got cut in September. One of these men gets the role that has already made everyone else in it rich. The rest get the most polite rejection email in Hollywood history.
The math is the joke. The studio took full creative control this year, hired Denis Villeneuve to direct, Steven Knight to write, and a producer duo that has been producing since before some of the candidates were born. Then the hardest part of the job: pick a British man who can look dangerous in a tuxedo that costs more than your car. The tests were pushed to the end of the month because of schedule conflicts, which is what a franchise does when it has three A-listers and one chair.
By year's end someone signs the deal. By next spring you will be arguing about whether he can do a roll. By the film's release, the internet will have generated 14,000 arguments about whether the job was ever about the acting.
YOUR TURN: which of the three is out of the 007 chair right now?
PAPER TRAIL
- The exclusive: Deadline
- The candidate photo: THR
- The search that started it: Nina Gold tapped as casting director
- The director hire: Villeneuve tapped
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