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He was rumoured (considered?) for Spectre, as Denbigh I believe. I always thought he looked too soft for a Bond villain.
Good shout for him as M though. He'd be a young M, but with a Bond in his 30s you could do a lot with their relationship that maybe hasn't quite been done in other films.
It's not even an issue of picking well known actors. Javier Bardem didn't simply rehash his performance as Anton Chigrugh in SF but played Silva as a sort of trickster. There are moments in that film where his character looks like he's having fun (yes, he's psychopathic and hell bent on revenge, but it's very different to his performance in No Country).
As for future Bond villains, I hope we get a good old fashioned distinctive looking character actor and not an actor given scars through the make-up. I can imagine someone like Tomas Lemarquis being in a future Bond film:
Perhaps not as the main villain, but maybe a henchman.
Stoll think he's a bit young. And I'd like them to keep Ralph Fiennes. Whether or not as the "same" M is another matter entirely.
Yeah, I can imagine him at his Blade Runner age playing a Silva-esque villain in a Bond film.
I hope the next Bond villain has some sense of 'fun' about them. I'm not saying they should be campy, but if done right there's something extra menacing when a villain finds some sort of joy in the horrible things they're doing. Both Waltz and Malek looked like they were taking things a bit too seriously, and Waltz's Blofeld especially would have benefited from being a bit more unhinged I feel.
It depends on the direction they want to go in. Personally, I'm 100% against Fiennes returning though. Compared to Dench he's not a particularly liked version of M, not only amongst Bond fans but general moviegoers. This I think was a major reason why Dench was able to return to the part in CR. Viewers for whatever reason just seemed to warm to her version of the character, to the extent where when people thought of the typical M/Bond briefing scenes in these films they automatically thought of Judi behind the desk. It helps I think that her M, while not wholly good or perfect by any means, was essentially depicted as a character who ultimately did the right thing at the end of the day. Fienne's M is much more morally ambiguous and his interpretation never had that same sense of authority, honour or trustworthiness. Another thing that impacts this is the fact that Fiennes is an actor known for playing villains much of the time, or at the very least morally ambiguous characters. It's a difficult reputation to shake off, as seen in how they wrote his version of M. Dench by contrast, mostly because of her portrayal of M, is more known for playing similar types of authoritative roles. People inherently view these actors differently, and unfortunately Fiennes will always be viewed with less warmth, as great an actor as he is.
Another reason is the fact that I think Bond 26 will be a harder reboot than even CR. So an entirely new MI6 cast might be needed to clearly separate it from the Craig era. Even if Fiennes returns playing a different version of M, there will always be that lingering thought that he was previously a part of those films, and like I said without that sense of inherent warmth towards the actor/their portrayal of this character, such a creative decision will always fall apart. I personally think it'd be a mistake asking him back.
I like Fiennes. He's a great actor. But his M is by no means iconic enough to justify him returning. Short of a Bernard Lee or Judi Dench this will always be the case in this particular scenario.
It's not a dislike per say, but I don't think there's any particular love for his M, and he just isn't associated with the role quite as fully as Dench was post Brosnan. Like I said, short of this there's no reason for an actor to return to such a role if the series is being rebooted. If anyone from the Craig era was to return based on such criteria it'd be Wishaw as Q. I don't think this will happen going from what Wishaw has said though.
It's also not the fact that he's played a variety of roles (which he has), but just about how he's viewed by the average moviegoer compared to Dench. On average, he's known more for playing villains than trutstworthy, authoritative figures, and I suspect this impacted how his M was written. I honestly don't think the writers would have had Dench's M be connected to the Heracles plot in quite the same way Mallory was in NTTD for example.
Have to say, I've always thought that Fiennes was ideal casting, though. I thought he was done a disservice in NTTD - he'd already refused to play M as a traitor in SP and then they made him responsible for a dubious programme that ran counter to everything that M had said he stood for in the previous film. That disconnect jarred a bit, tbh.
Yes, her playing M was a significant reason for her being viewed the way she is today. Fiennes, on the other hand, was an established British character actor long before he appeared in SF, but again one who was known for playing Voldemort, Goeth in Schindler's List, Dolarhyde in Red Dragon etc.
After seeing SF for the first time, I was actually excited for Fiennes as M going forward. While not technically speaking the 'real' M, I thought Mallory as a replacement character would be someone who could grow into the role, going from a by-the-books bureaucrat to the leader MI6 needs. It was refreshing to see Fiennes play the 'good guy' too, and the film, intentionally or not, seemed to subvert audience expectations quite well in the sense that Mallory is initially depicted as antagonistic to Bond to some extent.
But they never truly capitalised on this arc. Instead they played up Bond's lack of respect for authority, and very much leaned into the idea of Mallory willing to do questionable things. Fiennes never quite had that same sense of warmth or even authority either which Dench and Bernard Lee processed in their portrayals of M. Even Brown had both these qualities more than Fiennes. Without this, I don't think the character works onscreen.
Should have played the inquisitor in Kenobi.
I think Fiennes is known as a villain the way Robbie Coltrane was known as Hagrid. So getting another role in another franchise is a pretty moot point,,especially since he's been a successful actor in his own right before and after Voldemort.
In any case, it's hard to know what kind of reboot they'll go for, harder or softer than CR, as there's only ever been one proper reboot in the franchise so far.
I wouldn't necessarily use Coltrane as an analogy as that's a single part he performed later in his career and was simply well known for. Fiennes has a range of roles he's performed, and a number of his most well known ones are villains, to the point it's a notable aspect of his filmography and something he's known for doing well over a range of movies (again, Schindler's List, Harry Potter, In Bruges, Red Dragon, and even his voice acting in Prince of Egypt and Curse of the Warerabbit etc). Like I said, it's an aspect of him as an actor that I suspect played a huge part in the decisions to a) have his character be implicated with the Heracles plot in NTTD, b) initially have him as the villain in early SP drafts (supposedly) and c) initially depict him as antagonistic towards Bond in SF. Ironic, given I know he wanted to get away from playing villains as early as 2016.
Anyway, I just don't see any reason to keep him. If he wasn't asked back I don't think too many fans or general viewers would care either way (certainly less would than if Dench hadn't been asked back for CR anyway). There are other, more interesting picks to go with for a future M. I suspect the next film will be a harder reboot just because we've never had a situation where Bond has been killed off before, and I suspect they'll really want to differentiate the next actor's tenure from Craig's, but obviously I can't say for certain.
The Craig era had a lot of variation in tone to be fair, as did the Brosnan films. Even NTTD alone had pretty dramatic tonal jumps in the Cuba sequence alone.
It's difficult to tell exactly what we'll get in this case. I think they'll riff off of the ideas of the Craig era (a lot of which in themselves were adapted from ideas during the Brosnan era) but try to do something new and present then in a new 'Bond universe' with new casts etc. Which is what I mean by a harder reboot.
I like your list, but I note that Davi's villain Franz Sanchez was underserved by a tv-movie-of-the-week-rogue-cop-vs-drug-lord script, Sean Bean's Alec Trevelyan in GE was more blunt and not charming, not that he was meant to be, and for Skyfall, I suppose you refer to Javier Bardem's Silva and about whom I certainly agree. Too bad that LTK did not receive the more successful script-writing which benefitted SF. I concur on Trevelyan and Silva as well-chosen villains, but simply cannot find LTK as worthy. It was at least as disappointing as some of the RM films, though for very different reasons. The jealous schoolgirl sub-plot certainly did not help the film, either.
On my last viewing of LTK, I focused on why this subplot not only didn't bother me, but I actually liked it-- and I believe I discovered why:
It was a way of getting some inoffensive and light humour into a grim film, without relying on their leading man to deliver this to us (as Timothy Dalton often seemed uncomfortable in scenes with overt humour). It's also why I think Q had a larger role (to play the funny against Dalton's (mainly) straight man).
And as far as Sanchez is concerned, I love watching he and Dalton on screen together (but I also note the low-budget sets).
No way. Garfield looks way too youthful. Besides, I don't see the point of reusing Trevelyan, Bean played him perfectly.
For Bond 27 bring back Dalton, and give him a proper script and adventure ! Of course, he'd be playing a Mature, as they say, Bond. At the end, he dies....then, in the next film, bring back George Lazenby. At the end, he dies. Then, in the film thereafter, bring back Pierce Brosnan. By then he'll be more mature, too. At the end, yup, he dies. By then perhaps a younger actor who could generate even half the oomph of these three would be ready. At the end of his first film, he'd...oh, no. By then start a new trend of Bond surviving.