What does Gen Z want in the next Bond?

M16_Cart

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.

quantumspectre

I am a 37 year old, so for me the movies are good as they are, but i think people younger than me maybe knows what they want in 007.
for me, there must be a cool girl, a car chase, some jokes and a trouble that 007 need to resolve before the credits.

M16_Cart

I realize this forum isn't the best sample for Gen Z. I assume many people here are age 30+.

Younger people tend to be on social media platforms, big platforms with smaller communities inside of it, rather than message boards.

NickTwentyTwo

Is Gen Z “people who came of age around the release of World War Z”?

Seve

This is something I've often wondered about

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

ToTheRight

Seve wrote: »

This is something I've often wondered about

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.

BT3366

Seve wrote: »

This is something I've often wondered about

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

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.

Venutius

Seve wrote: »

This is something I've often wondered about. 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?

I blame Buffy! That programme made producers realise that adults as well as kids would watch teenage protagonists and since then they've cast younger and younger all the time. I hoped it was a fad, but...

CigaretteLeiter

21 year old Bond fan with several 21 year old Bond fans as friends, here. When we were younger and Skyfall/Spectre were premiering, James Bond was an aspirational figure, and in similar ways, he still is. Bond represents an ideal man- someone with unshakeable confidence who can do what he wants, when he wants, but largely does the right thing. He hits the same "badass anti-hero" node that Wolverine and Batman do, and nobody's clamoring for them to get any more PC.

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.

jobo

The question is very good, but the target audience is the wrong one. People who give answers here will already be Bond fans. The trick is to appaell to the people who aren't.

Benjamin_Weekly69

Twitch streamer Bond.

Bond

The thing is in today's culture James Bond should be the most outdated, out of place relic and you would never expect our society to enjoy it so much and yet look how successful it is. I think people deep down inside whether they admit it or not love the character of James Bond the way he is, so I don't think anything about him should change. I'd like to know how popular he is with Zoomers, but I don't think there's any data.

Tracer1

My 13-yr old daughter loves Craig's James Bond... but she loves Q more ^_^

007HallY

At risk of digging up an old thread - and indeed topic of discussion - I do wonder how much the Producers will be thinking about this and what form 'appealing to Get Z' will take. I'm in my mid 20s btw, so a little out of that generation, but not by much. I have noticed there's been a tendency on these forums to come up with pretty standard ideas. I've heard the phrase 'Instagram Luxury' thrown about a lot (I still have no idea what it means), 'high tech' technology, 'more sex', 'escapism', and suggestions such as casting an actor in their early 20s to play Bond. All sound like something people over the age of 40 would suggest quite frankly. It makes about as much sense as saying Bond should be more 'woke'.

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.