The next installment of James Bond won’t include Daniel Craig. He has said he has shaken his last movie martini. While the search is on for a new replacement, there is talk the next Bond might be named Jane. Among the names being floated for the role is “X-Files” star Gillian Anderson.
Female secret agents are not new to the silver screen. When the movie spy craze busted out in the swinging 1960s, it wasn’t hard to find experts in espionage in both genders—and the women spies weren’t just there for eye candy. In 1966, “Modesty Blaise” starred Monica Vitti, recruited by the British Secret Service to outwit a Middle East sheik. In “Deadlier Than the Male” (1967), Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina played two assassins that matched wits with British intelligence.
Over the decades, strong women continued to pop up as stars in spy movies. Recently, the film “Hanna” (2011) was carried by Saoirse Ronan and Cate Blanchett, who spent the whole movie shooting, stabbing, and spying on one another.
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Even the Bond films have featured some pretty tough spies who could hold their own, like Michelle Yeoh who kicks Bond’s butt in “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997).
Of course, the world is ready for a Jane Bond—as long as there is an entertaining movie to watch and not the stupid schlock like Rogers Moore’s “Octopussy” (1983) or the boring Bond like Timothy Dalton in “The Living Daylights” (1983).
If there is a watchable film on the screen, they will come—whether the Bond is a boy or a girl.
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