While we’re still waiting on an official announcement about who is going to play James Bond, we now know who will be behind the camera. Denis Villeneuve, who most recently directed the Dune movies, will be the first director to take on a James Bond movie now that Amazon has control of the franchise.
Villeneuve is a splashy hire, the kind of director who can make basically whatever he wants. He’s not quite on the level of Christopher Nolan, but he’s pretty close, and so the fact that he’s attached himself to this franchise will undoubtedly increase the hype for the next movie, regardless of who eventually stars in it.
For more than one reason, though, choosing Villeneuve is a perplexing, and possible incorrect choice. Here’s why Amazon probably should have gone in a different direction:
Villeneuve is a deathly serious filmmaker
Perhaps the most crucial reason that Villeneuve is a strange choice for Bond is that he is not a director who leans into comedy. James Bond has gone through periods of self-seriousness over its history, but almost none of the movies in the franchise are as dark and serious as some of Villeneuve’s work.
That’s not to say that these movies don’t have moments of levity, but they’re few and far between. Daniel Craig’s Bond, the most recent iteration, was probably the most self-serious version of the character to date. That modernization mostly worked, but it has naturally led to a hunger for the new iteration of James Bond to feel different from what came before. In hiring Villeneueve, Amazon seems to be suggesting that what they’re actually interested in is something very much like what Craig’s version of the character was up to. That’s not a great way to make this new version of Bond feel distinct from his predecessor.
James Bond cannot take advantage of Villeneuve’s greatest strength
The other reason Bond seems like a strange fit for the Dune director is that the thing Villeneuve is the best at is not something James Bond will give him many opportunities to do. Villeneueve is great at building out worlds and making them feel totally real. His Dune movies are such a triumphant because he seems to understand, almost intuitively, how to make the story’s various settings into distinct locations that each feel like they have real histories.
With James Bond, Villeneuve will not be creating anything new at all. He might get to shoot in a new location or introduce a new villain, but fundamentally, Bond is a character whose world and lore is already well-established. Villeneuve can only do so much to reinvent a character who has already been on screen for decades.
It all might work out
Denis Villeneueve is a great director, so it’s hugely possible that he’ll be able to make a great James Bond movie. What’s also true, though, is that he was an odd choice for the job at this particular moment in history. He’ll undoubtedly be one of the best directors to ever take on a Bond, but whether his Bond movie is one of the best ever made remains to be seen.
