The next James Bond is reportedly one of six men, and the reported favorite is the one you couldn’t pick out of a lineup.
That’s the claim in a new report, which says Amazon has trimmed its search for Daniel Craig’s replacement to a shortlist of six names. Five of them you know. One of them you almost certainly don’t.
Screen tests are expected to begin in early September.
Nothing here is confirmed. Amazon hasn't announced who inherits the license to kill, and the studio has said only that the search is underway. But the reported list is specific enough to be worth reading closely, because it tells you what kind of Bond the franchise thinks it wants.
The reported frontrunner has three credits you’d recognize
Jack Barton is the surprise favorite, according to the report. He’s turned up in Netflix’s Heartstopper and in Steven Knight’s SAS: Rogue Heroes, where he played the real-life SAS soldier John Tonkin. He also had a small part in Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, credited as Fop 1.
Fop 1. That’s the résumé line sitting closest to 007 right now.
It sounds absurd until you remember what the job has historically rewarded. Barton trained at the Oxford School of Drama, and his thin public profile lines up with what longtime Bond casting director Debbie McWilliams has said about the part: that 007 should stay an enigma, played by someone audiences don’t already know too well.
An unknown can’t drag another character into the tuxedo with him. That’s the argument, anyway, and Amazon appears to be taking it seriously.
The five names you already know
Jack Lowden is the most on-the-nose option, given he’s currently playing River Cartwright in Apple TV Plus’ spy thriller Slow Horses. Spy work, already in progress.
Callum Turner came out of the World War II miniseries Masters of the Air, and he’s set to play John Lennon in Sam Mendes’ upcoming series of Beatles films.
Which is where the list gets tidy in an odd way, because he isn’t the only Beatle on it.
Jacob Elordi has been rumored for this longer than anyone
Elordi’s name has attached itself to Bond speculation for years, and his recent work keeps feeding it. He broke out in Netflix’s The Kissing Booth, then moved into heavier material with Euphoria, Priscilla and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein.
He plays Heathcliff in the upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation and leads The Dog Stars, a post-apocalyptic drama that’s drawn a divided critical response.
He’s the pick if Amazon wants the room to gasp when the name drops. He’s also the pick least compatible with the enigma theory, which cuts both ways.
Paul Mescal is the other half of the Beatles overlap
Mescal built his reputation on emotionally intense work, starting with Connell Waldron in the Normal People miniseries. He earned an Academy Award nomination for Aftersun, then took the much bigger action swing as Lucius in Gladiator II.
He also stars as William Shakespeare in Hamnet, a performance that’s strengthened his standing as one of his generation’s most acclaimed actors. And he’s set to play Paul McCartney in the upcoming Beatles biopic.
So two of the six reported contenders are already booked into the same Beatles project. Make of that what you will.
Harris Dickinson is the wild card at the bottom
Dickinson closes out the reported shortlist on the back of Triangle of Sadness, The Iron Claw, Where the Crawdads Sing and Babygirl. He played Prince Philip in the series A Murder at the End of the World.
His CV reads less Bond-coded than Elordi’s or Lowden’s. But the range is there, across prestige dramas, thrillers and larger studio productions, which is the same argument being made for everyone else on this list.
What’s actually locked in
The film, commonly called Bond 26, will be directed by Denis Villeneuve, with Nina Gold as casting director. Steven Knight is writing, joining Villeneuve on the 007 reboot.
That’s the part worth anchoring to. Villeneuve, Gold and Knight are real. The six names are a report.
Bond has survived six actors since Sean Connery introduced Ian Fleming’s British superspy in 1962’s Dr. No. George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Craig each bent the character into a different shape, suave or funny or ruthless or vulnerable, sometimes all of it at once.
Craig finished his run with 2021’s No Time to Die. Five years on, the tuxedo is still hanging in the closet.
Amazon hasn’t confirmed a single one of the reported contenders. The studio will share more, it said, “as soon as the time is right.”
