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What does Gen Z want in the next Bond?
M16_Cart
Craig fanboy?
For the franchise to live forever, it depends on the young blood. It's not about me and what I want. The franchise needs a Bond that will appeal to people under age 20.
Fans like me will watch every Bond movie that comes out, but for the younger audience, they may not yet be invested in it.
I know a lot of people on here are older, but maybe you have kids/neices/nephews who are into it. I'm curious on how they feel about it.
Fans like me will watch every Bond movie that comes out, but for the younger audience, they may not yet be invested in it.
I know a lot of people on here are older, but maybe you have kids/neices/nephews who are into it. I'm curious on how they feel about it.
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for me, there must be a cool girl, a car chase, some jokes and a trouble that 007 need to resolve before the credits.
Younger people tend to be on social media platforms, big platforms with smaller communities inside of it, rather than message boards.
Why do people think that younger viewers need to see a person near their own age in a role in order to identify with it?
For myself, when I was a kid I much preferred watching Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape", "The Magnificent Seven" or "Nevada Smith" to watching some kid my one age in a Disney movie
I had no trouble relating to adult Steve McQueen, because I wanted to be like him (as he seemed on screen) rather than be like another kid, which I already was
This. For me it was McQueen, Bogart and Cagney. I'm not so sure age is that important to the younger generation going to movies. Downey, Cruise, and Keanu are all well into their fifties and HUGE box office draws in popular franchises.
They won't care as long as the new Bond carries himself with confidence , can kick ass and is also fallible.
Yes, you nailed it with me as well. As a teenage Bond fan in the '80s, I looked up to Connery, Lazenby and Moore as my action guys. Moore was obviously aging, but he was Bond, so it was okay. If you were cool, you were cool, age wasn't a factor and I had a lot of movie heroes who weren't necessarily of my generation.
This also reminds me of the situation around 2002 before DAD was released and Vin Diesel had that XxX movie coming out and he put Bond down saying kids can't identify with a hero who wears a suit. So which film did better business and which series is still going on with the guy in the suit?
Besides, if you let Gen Z cast a film, they may select some influencer or TikTok star.
Bond can't be forcing himself on women in a barn anymore, but the rest of the character works well. Just make sure the action and aesthetics are stylistically fresh (NTTD did this very well) and you'll have us coming back for more. We're not THAT hard to please.
To be honest, whatever interactions I have with anyone under 20 (family etc.) about culture and what's relevant is about stuff like Stranger Things, 'Running Up That Hill' by Kate Bush, mullets (I have a 16 year old cousin who is obsessed with getting her hair styled like this), Euphoria, how cool VHS looks... Heck, I've talked with a few about old books even I hadn't read. Most of them find Instagram 'influencers' to be con artists or vapid (it's more a millennial thing to be attracted to these types of people). Now, is this because there's something deeper going on here? That Gen Z kids can't remember a time before 9/11, domestic terrorism, recessions etc. and want to subconsciously escape to a time before that? Seems questionable as I don't believe many people 16-18 have particularly starry eyed nostalgia for things like Reaganism, the AIDS epidemic, Thatcher etc. Is it because Stranger Things/Euphoria captured the zeitgeist by being about younger characters? Ok, then where does that leave Bond? He's not inherently a youthful character and it's doubtful whether a 'young Bond' approach will work narratively. Is it simply because Tik Tok/various forms of social media are able to take these little 'splices' of nostalgia, package them in trendy videos and introduce them to masses of younger viewers? I mean, maybe, maybe not. Is it just that they want something different in general? Something that they can connect with?
My point is, I'm not sure if there's any magic formula for getting this audience. Sure, we could have a Bond song more in line with the 80s ballads, or perhaps more in the vein of a Kate Bush song (actually this would be rather good, especially with how dreary and 'modern' the last two songs were). The next Bond girl could dress in 80s style clothes and have a mullet (seems a terrible idea truth be told). Maybe the next Bond film will simply be more escapist, which I'm fine with broadly... ultimately I think the best way forward is not to try and capture this demographic but try to come up a fresh approach for the next Bond film overall. Don't simply bow to audiences and make something in the style of the new Top Gun, but don't be blind to being different from the previous instalments either. Ultimately, fresh ideas, attention to story detail, trying new things, while understanding what makes Bond a character and the films/books so enjoyable might be better than chasing the Gen Z crowd with superficial tricks.
We are at the tale end of the requel phase in Hollywood and I don’t think the bond producers would do a final Bond vs Blofeld film bringing back say Dalton for his third film ala Force awakens Halloween 2018 and to a lesser extent Texas Chainsaw 2022
So what else is there for the Producers to look into
Honestly I don’t know there seems to be a mixture of
80’s love (see it chapter 1 and stranger things)
Requel’s (see the examples above)
Multiverse films
and if we look at The Batman an action film that has elements of horror and Mob film
Honestly I could see the spangled Mob showing up and showing a younger bond but not the origins of him with an assassin trying to kill 007 that is half usual henchmen and half Michael myers
Trust me I would love either an 80’s period piece (with yes doing the theme song)
Or a Requel with either Dalton or Brosnan coming back
(Or Deaging Lazenby lol)
But I think that is to far fetched for 007
I don’t mind the winks, I think Bond franchise is rather more restrained than others for that. It’s almost certainly because I saw NTTD before OHMSS but I didn’t even those callbacks. For 1. It’s a 50+ year old film
that’s 2. the least well known of the franchise, so casual audiences aren’t going to know and why not reintroduce those things. But I agree with everything else, as an older Gen Z who had just a hint of Brosnan but for whom Craig is really the only Bond they’ve ever known, I want directors that are going to add their mark, for better or worse. I want the autere-ish sensibilities with a bit of Brosnan charm.
Nice ! You must be a superb bartender, by the way
I don’t think you need to be that extreme with Bond but sort of looking at the style guys like that are going with is what the most modern gen are looking for with Bond and are likely to need to see Bond as “their Bond”
Lots of guys in pop have had androgynous styles over the years.
Bravo!
Yeah it's nothing hugely new. Bowie in the 70s, Boy George in the 80s.. every time people got scared it was the end of masculinity etc. but never seem to learn that there's plenty of room for all.
=D>
And also, bear in mind that both of those positions are often entirely invented by the Carvers of the world hoping to stoke war from those on the other side. No-one wants to render anyone sterile.
I'm with you: he'll get a little tweak, just as he always has had, and he'll stay Bond, just as he always has.
Which, it should be said, is perhaps the strongest part of the film series. Never mind an ever-changing world with its rapid technological advances, its constant geopolitical shifts, its pop-cultural fabs, trends, and wars; the James Bond of NTTD is still the James Bond of DN, give or take a few minor adjustments. His DNA being what it is, this character hasn't yet morphed into a bastardization of itself; rather, every time he risks slipping into parody, he climbs back up to be his best self. Who'd've thought that after the video-game adventure of DAD with its face-changed robo-villain, invisible car and 'Yo Momma!' ally, Bond would come down to Earth and make Fleming proud? Well, this Bond fan, for one, because it's happened before. It happened in '69, in '81, in '87, ...
The inherent qualities of Bond are such that they allow both exotic wilds and sober returns to the source. James Bond is James Bond. Half a century ago, people were worried that he couldn't survive the '70s. Look where we are today. Of course, there are always those who want to go "here" or "there" with Bond, and others who feel threatened by change and submit thesis after thesis of "everything wrong with the James Bond of tomorrow" and why it's not their James Bond and whatnot. Meanwhile, those guarding the fortress--EON, the Broccolis--have kept Bond safe from harm, while also carefully giving consideration to how our society is evolving and how Bond must evolve with it. When people accept certain things as morally reprehensible, like slapping a woman in the face, James Bond will refrain from such things too. Is that a threat to Bond's identity? No, it isn't. For I'd hope that we're not reducing him to a collection of indulgences that were given a pass then but no more now.
Also, the slippery-slope argument that if we remove one superficial aspect of Bond, soon Bond will be no more, is a fallacy. After 60 years, Bond still kills tons of henchmen, still breaks every traffic law, still drinks his liver into cirrhosis, still enjoys the company of a beautiful woman, still makes snarky as well as witty remarks, still fights the baddies for us, still gambles, and still roughs up a thug who's coming at him with an attitude. Where and when have we lost our Bond, as some love to claim that we have? What has changed since DN? That Quarrel probably mustn't fetch his shoes anymore? If that's it, I guess we're safe. Let those who feel threatened by the passing of time point out the steep decline in Bond's characterisation. I'm not saying it couldn't happen; I'm saying it hasn't. We can probably think of film characters who aren't granddad's version anymore--though I can't think of too many at the moment--but Bond appears pretty well "conserved" in every respect. Should the day come when someone decides to pull Bond through the meat grinder and feed us someone we barely recognise as Bond, well, then I guess we have at least over two dozen films to enjoy, which is way more than most film series have in store. Perhaps that alternative version of Bond is still surprisingly enticing and interesting. But enough with this silly hypothesis. Right now, I see no signs of any abrupt changes that might justify the fear that the next James Bond will no longer qualify as such. In fact, I rather pity those who call themselves fans but live in constant fear that EON is conspiring against Bond. I'm just happily looking forward to the next wave of announcements, surprises, first glimpses, ... If 2005 and 2006 taught me anything, it's that fear clouds the joy that comes with the grand adventure called a new Bond era.
Thank you, yes; I'm tired of that one. The idea that 'they're' coming for Bond, that if you change one aspect of him he'll be lost forever, is a tiresome one which seems to persist. But we had it when he dared to turn fair-haired, we recently had it where he wasn't going to have the number 007 but someone else was, and we were told by other fans that that would be unacceptable and he wouldn't be Bond anymore... all of these just storms in a teacup which pass unremembered, and yet Bond is still there. Blimey, they even killed him, and that's not going to stop him!
What's a bit frustrating is folks not learning from the past. Bond and the formula have been changed before and we don't even spot it when we look back now, just as Bowie didn't kill the idea of masculinity 50 years ago when he wore a bit of makeup. Ease up on the hysteria and have a look at how it went down last time.
In order to change Bond dramatically from his roots, they would have to go as far as turn him into Captain America.
What got my attention when Dr. No came out my ninth grade year was the sex, violence, style, humor, cars, gadgets, music, action, adventure, and exotic locations. Not for a second did I take any of it seriously. It was fantasy and escapism. None of it influenced me to demean or mistreat others.