Ian Fleming based the character on his own experiences and Bonds early life mimicked his own upbringing too. In other words that of a privileged, privately educated rich white boy.
How many black people do you know that could relate to that?
If you make James Bond black then you need to completely re-write his origins. Which begs the question why not just create a new character, that will appeal to black people without the baggage of all the race swap bollocks?
When was the last time those origins were remotely relavent to the character on screen? Is Moonraker thematically true to those origins? The one where Bond fights a metal giant in space? In fact, didn’t the most recent Bond re-tell his origins so he could be Blofelds brother? Was that all palatable because he was a white guy? In fact, weren’t his Fleming written origins re-written as far back as the 60s to excuse the fact Connery was Scottish? (Spoiler: they were) What’s stopping us doing that again?
We’ve done all that. Why do we need to keep doing it? What’s the point of making endless more Bond films for another 50 years if we’re restricted to this a singular interpretation? To reiterate... Would Idris in Casino Royale be a worse interpretation of Bond than Moonraker, or Die Another Day, just by being black? Why is “whiteness” more inherent to the character than the ever shifting tone of the series?
Also, sure, being black and posh wouldn’t wash in 1960, but in 2019 it very much can... especially if you go with the whole “adopted orphan” angle... which the current films are already somewhat leaning into.
The spiderman comparison is not relevant at all. Miles Morales Is a brand new character that becomes spiderman. No race swapping of Peter Parker, a brand new character that Latino/black people can relate to.
Did I not say exactly the same thing regarding Bond? Introduce a new black 00 agent in the next Bond film and then give him his own franchise to run with.
Isn’t this kind of thing already many people’s head cannon? Don’t people like to hypothesise that 007 is just a legacy number, passed down to different people, in order to reconsile all the differences in actors, tone, setting, etc? So why is that different to the “passing of the mantle” Spider-Verse?
It just seems so utterly boring to me. Shakespeare hasn’t survived all these years by people insisting Romeo and Juliet are always depicted as Veronan teenagers, has he? In fact, the complete opposite is true. When was the last time anyone tried to adapt Willy Shakes “authentically”? They even did an Othello with Patrick Stewart where everyone’s but him was black. It’s fiction FFS.... it survives through adaptation.
