Hold on, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam, Michael Fassbender, and Jamie Bell. We know each of you is eager to bed beautiful women and efficiently kill baddies and annoy Q by messing with his gadgets and infuriate M with your recklessness and shamelessly flirt with Miss Moneypenny and zoom around in an Aston Martin (hopefully not after a few martinis, shaken, not stirred) and be a horrendous sexist as James Bond. And if the Sun is to be believed (I can’t believe I just wrote the phrase “if the Sun is to be believed”; there goes the last of my journalistic integrity), all of you are in the running for the role. There has been fierce speculation about who will take over as 007 ever since Daniel Craig said he’d “rather slit his wrists” than play Bond a fifth time.
It turns out that either Craig was simply joking when he said that, or threatening to cut yourself is a negotiating tool they don’t teach at business school, because Craig’s bosses have reportedly offered $150 million to reprise Bond. RadarOnline has the exclusive story saying that Sony “is desperate to secure the actor’s services while they phase in a younger long-term successor … the idea of losing him at such a crucial time in the franchise isn’t an option as far as all the studio honchos are concerned.” While the last Bond film, Spectre, wasn’t critically adored, it did massive business, earning more than $800 million, so Craig is still obviously a safe bet for the studio. Craig might be tempted: $150 million could buy a lot of razor blades.
