James Bond Day: Why 007, world’s most famous spy, must reinvent himself to stay relevant

This year, Bond Day lands in something of a limbo: Denis Villeneuve, the Canadian director known for his feature films like Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and the two-part Dune (2021, 2024), is supposedly directing the next 007. Steven Knight, the creator of the popular historical crime drama, Peaky Blinders, has been roped in to work on the script for the first Bond film under Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon MGM Studios. Amazon took creative control of the franchise in February this year; Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, the duo who brought the 007 films to theatres for more than 60 years, remain co-owners of the franchise.

The Sean Connery era

However, we still don’t know anything about the next Bond. The Aston Martin is raring to be revved up, but no one’s at the wheel. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Theo James, and Jacob Elordi are all in the fray, with producers reportedly on the hunt for a young British, preferably Person of Colour (POC) actor under 30. Henry Cavill and a few others have also been mentioned, but don’t expect the next Bond to hit screens anytime soon; the film isn’t slated for release until 2027, which leaves fans with plenty of time to speculate, debate, and refresh their betting apps.

The real question that hangs over Bond today, as the franchise turns 63, isn’t who will play 007 next. It’s whether the myth of James Bond still means anything. Because what started as Cold War saga of espionage has become a kind of cultural weather vane, measuring how the world’s idea of manhood, sex, and morality changes with time. We last met Bond in the 2021 film, No Time to Die, the twenty-fifth instalment in the official James Bond series produced by EON Productions, and Daniel Craig’s fifth and final performance as the spy with a penchant for martinis, shaken not stirred.

Also read: James Bond: As Amazon MGM takes control, will 007 still have a license to thrill?

Post-Craig, it’s clear that the franchise can’t coast on swagger alone. Bond now carries baggage: emotional, historical, and existential. The last time the franchise was in the throes of a crisis was in 1969, with George Lazenby, arguably the most forgettable actor who played Bond. In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Bond (Lazenby) fell in love, got married, and then lost everything in what might be the first cinematic emotional gut-punch for a secret agent. Tracy Bond (played by Diana Rigg), the troubled but strong-willed daughter of crime lord Marc-Ange Draco, is the only woman in the cinematic franchise to officially marry James Bond. When Connery had come on board, like Lazenby, he too wasn’t famous. A former bodybuilder, model, milkman, and chorus line member in Edinburgh, he became the face of British cool more by accident than design. Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had gambled on Lazenby as they wanted a fresh face that audiences could project their fantasies — and fears — onto.

In a way, Connery’s Bond is the origin story we keep returning to because, well, he made it look effortless with his ultra smooth charm. His women — Ursula Andress’s Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore, Tatiana Romanova — were defined in relation to him. The Bond woman, in Connery’s era, existed largely as contrast. Andress walking out of the sea as Ryder in Dr. No remains one of cinema’s most reproduced images. Galore was competent, clever, morally ambiguous, but ultimately contained. Tatiana shifted loyalties, but her intelligence existed largely as tension against Bond’s. These early “Bond girls” were sharp, but the sharpness was framed through the male gaze.

Roger Moore and the male gaze

By the time Roger Moore stepped in (1973-1985) in his debut Bond film, Live and Let Die, the world had somewhat changed. The tensions of the Cold War continued, but feminism was rising, and the public appetite for suave cruelty had cooled. Moore went on to act in six more films — including The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) — until his final appearance in A View to a Kill in 1985.

Moore was a performer who moved through exotic locations with charm, sarcasm, and a knack for surviving stunts that made you raise an eyebrow. He understood that the world was changing and that the spy fantasy could be fun without losing its edge. He turned the role into camp theatre and it worked because Moore played Bond like a man who knew he was in on the joke. His 007 wasn’t killing for Queen and country; he was killing time, with style.

Moore’s levity served a function. It kept the franchise alive during a decade when spy stories could easily have curdled into paranoia. His Bond gave audiences the illusion of continuity, even as global politics turned absurd. The women in Moore’s films — from Jane Seymour’s clairvoyant voodoo psychic Solitaire to Maud Adams’s Octopussy, the mysterious, resourceful, and powerful businesswoman who leads the Octopus Cult — were more assertive, but not yet autonomous.

These women had skill and sass and flirted with independence, but the scripts reeled them back. The narrative still pivoted around Bond and the gender dynamic still lagged behind the era it claimed to reflect. They were more present than in Connery’s era, but rarely autonomous. Moore’s Bond entertained, but he never made you forget that this was still a fantasy of male control.

Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan

Timothy Dalton’s Bond (1987-1989) was serious, dark, and, at the time, almost too grim for audiences used to Moore’s theatricality. The Living Daylights (1987), his debut as Bond, presented a gritty portrayal of the secret agent, moving away from the lighter tone of the previous films. Dalton played a spy who questioned himself. Women in his films were tough and independent, like Carey Lowell’s Pam Bouvier, an ex-CIA pilot and informant in Licence to Kill (1989). Bouvier played a more modern Bond girl, resourceful and capable of handling herself in a fight, working with Bond and the Drug Enforcement Administration to bring down the drug trafficker Franz Sanchez.

Pierce Brosnan’s tenure (1995-2002) was the Bond of the polished, globalised 90s. Post-Cold War, pre-9/11, the franchise needed sheen, action, and just enough charm. Brosnan’s Bond is often criticised for being “corporate,” but he blended Connery’s suaveness, Moore’s wit, and Dalton’s seriousness into a package that could sell everything from Aston Martins to martinis.

The women got more professional and global. Izabella Scorupco played Natalya Simonova, a Russian computer programmer in GoldenEye (1995), who helps Bond in stopping the villain Alec Trevelyan and his plan to use the GoldenEye weapon. Sophie Marceau portrayed Elektra King, the cunning daughter of a wealthy oil magnate who becomes a formidable villainess and James Bond’s lover before revealing her true allegiance to the terrorist Renard in The World is Not Enough (1999).

Far from being just romantic foils, the Bond women around this time were competent and narratively necessary. But even here, the story centred on Bond. Brosnan’s era was about style over soul, but with a subtle self-awareness that Judi Dench’s M, the head of the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), highlighted perfectly.

Also read: Black female as new 007: Why it shouldn't shake or stir us

Dench made her debut as M in GoldenEye and continued in the role for seven films, making a final appearance in Skyfall (2012). Her female M was a departure from previous male actors, Bernard Lee and Robert Brown, in the role and is considered a memorable interpretation of the character. In GoldenEye, she calls Bond “a sexist, misogynist dinosaur.” It was the first time the franchise spoke to itself critically.

Daniel Craig and the next Bond

Craig’s Bond (2006-2021) was a clean break from everything that came before. Gone were the fancy gadgets and the easy jokes. His Bond looked like he’d actually been in a fight; bruised, bleeding, and a bit lost under all that control. Casino Royale stripped Bond down to a man trying to prove himself, falling in love, getting betrayed. Craig gave the character gravitas, even through his silences.

Over the years, his Bond grew more human, sometimes even confused about what he was fighting for. In Skyfall (2012), you could see the cracks: the exhaustion, the loneliness, the sense that the job had eaten up everything else. He didn’t glide through missions anymore; he stumbled, doubted, and still got up. That vulnerability became the point. Bond was no longer the fantasy of the unbreakable man; he was the fantasy of someone who keeps going even when he’s clearly breaking.

The women around him changed, too. Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) was the first to really shake him. From their first verbal sparring on the train in Casino Royale, you could tell she saw through his charm, calling out his ego and insecurities before he could hide behind them. She understood the man behind the myth: the orphan, the soldier, the loner trying too hard to act tough. Her betrayal in the end — driven by guilt and impossible choices — broke something in him. It turned the suave MI6 agent into the colder, more cynical Bond we see in later films.

Later came M as his emotional anchor, and Madeleine Swann, who saw through the armour. They weren’t just “Bond girls” anymore; they were his equals, mirrors, and sometimes, his undoing. Craig’s Bond turned the series into something that could actually end — and when No Time to Die closed his story, it felt final, human, and oddly moving for a character who once seemed impossible to kill.

With Villeneuve now steering the ship, the question isn’t just who the next Bond will be, it’s what he will stand for. What does 007 even mean in 2025? The suave killer in a tux used to define the spy genre; now, he’s almost playing catch-up to it. The world has changed — and so have its secret agents. We’ve had Jason Bourne bleeding through his trauma, Ethan Hunt hanging off planes in existential overdrive, and John Wick turning grief into a ballet of violence. They’ve all borrowed from Bond’s DNA, but they’ve evolved into something larger, faster, and more personal.

Bond can’t win that game anymore. The muscle, the gadgets, the stunts — those tricks have been perfected by others. If he’s going to matter now, he has to stay relevant to our times. The new Bond can’t just seduce and shoot; he has to say something, even in silence. Perhaps that’s what Villeneuve will be eyeing to do: make Bond more introspective, with less swagger and more substance. Not a reboot for nostalgia’s sake, but a reinvention for an age that’s stopped believing in heroes of the yore. Maybe the next Bond won’t be about saving the world at all. Maybe it’ll be about understanding it.