James Bond hasn’t had “a good villain that works in a long time”, says ‘Andor’ creator

Andor creator Tony Gilroy believes that the James Bond franchise hasn’t had “a good villain that works in a long time”.

He made the admission whilst talking about once pitching a Bond movie with director Steven Soderbergh that would have taken the character back to the 1960s.

Speaking on The Rogue Ones podcast: “I think Steven tried twice to get into the Bond business. And it sounds to me very much like what they’re doing now is very much what [Steven] was suggesting a long time ago.

“We wanted to go back to the ’60s and do it in black and white and do Carnaby St. and do the whole thing, I thought it was a really swinging idea, like $30million (£22million) [budget], but he couldn’t get them (producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson) to…they just wouldn’t give anybody control.”

He continued: “And then the other time – I don’t want to really talk about this – but I had a [good] villain.

“The problem with the Bond [franchise] is that they can’t get a good villain that works. In my opinion, they haven’t had a villain that worked in a very, very long time,” he added. “And that’s the whole problem, the rest of it takes care of itself. And I had another villain from another movie that I could have transposed, And [Steven and I] had a fantasy about doing that together, but no, I don’t think it went anywhere.”

Broccoli and Wilson recently stepped away from the creative process and handed over control of the Bond estate to Amazon MGM Studios, ending over 60 years of the Broccoli family’s control of the films.

Amy Pascal and David Heyman, producers of the Spider-Man and Harry Potter films respectively, have been reported as the possible replacements for Wilson and Broccoli.

Bond fans did not react kindly to the news of the franchise’s sale, with some predicting that Amazon will “ruin” the series by over-saturating the market with “mediocre spin-offs”.

British actor Daniel Mays, who starred in Rogue One, recently shared that the franchise could be going in a new direction, with a younger actor and a retro setting. He added: “Bond is a big deal right, that going to Amazon … I heard a rumour they’re going to cast someone very young and go sort of back to the origins. They’re going to sort of ’60s, you’re going to have all the retro cars and that sort of stuff – and start again. I think that would be kind of cool”.

Elsewhere, Danny Boyle recently revealed his greatest regret about walking away from directing the last Bond film No Time To Die.

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