It’s pretty clear at this point that any non-Idris Elba successor to the James Bond throne is going to be a massive disappointment. After rumours spread at the end of last week that producers of the legendary spy series are heavily leaning on Idris as Bond, the man himself followed up with a tweet which seemed to confirm he was circling the gig.
But now it seems he might just be trolling. After last night’s “Elba… Idris Elba” tweet, he’s thrown another one into the void for us all to contemplate:
Don’t believe the HYPE…
— Idris Elba (@idriselba) August 12, 2018
Because this is the internet and nobody has the capacity to act or think normally, the replies to Elba’s tweet – which seems, on the face of it, to shoot down the rumours – are full of people speculating on whether HYPE is an acronym for something 007-related.
https://twitter.com/RedBeardOfDoom/status/1028626210191011842
There are essentially three eventualities which could spawn from this:
- Idris Elba is actually going to play James Bond, and he’s fucking with everyone for no reason beyond his own sick entertainment.
- Idris Elba is not going to play James Bond, and they’re going to announce Zac Efron instead and everyone will be very mad about it.
- Everyone realises that James Bond, as a character and a series, actually sucks in a very large way and is inexorably bound to a vanishingly irrelevant Cold War mindset which forever means it will be outclassed by the sheer insanity of productions like the Mission Impossible series.
I hope for 3, but I seriously doubt it at this point.
Whichever way it goes, they’re gonna have to announce it sooner or later. Daniel Craig is on his very last outing, and the vaguely Bourne Identity inspired Bond he has portrayed is almost completely out of steam. Give us Idris! Give us Idris or cancel the series forever!
