Could #Metoo be Bond’s ultimate nemesis?

As Danny Boyle is tasked with bringing James Bond into the post-weinstein world, Sunday Times Culture’s Jonathan Dean imagines what a feminist retelling* might look like

A FEW YEARS AGO, when interviewing Daniel Craig, I told him people didn’t like the scene in Skyfall in which Bond had sex with a prostitute he’d freed. ‘Did they not?’ he asked, surprised. Well, no. She was a sex slave, and Bond did what men had done to her since she was 12. ‘He’s a misogynist,’ Craig responded, ‘he’s got serious fucking problems.’

This was 2015 when, in pre-enlightenment Hollywood, people just did sexism without thinking because, effectively, very few people cared. Fast-forward three years and, in the era of #Metoo, Craig’s sex-addict spy feels like a relic. You can’t just shag everybody because you’re a powerful man any more, which makes one wonder what on earth Danny Boyle is going to do with the 25th Bond film – which he’s directing and again stars Craig.

Picture a pre-credits action sequence entirely without men. It’s a Bond film – men will come later – but, before the big theme, Boyle should let Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) take centre stage. A man is in trouble and so, gathering a crack team of slightly sozzled female friends she happens to be at a Lorde gig with, the former secretary (returned to active field duty) saves him. No men in sight – baddies are masked – the final words, off-camera, belong to a feeble Craig: ‘ You should have let me rot.’

Cue title song – an empowering banger by Lorde – and we’re back to Bond, swiping Bumble alone at home, in a fix. Russians he thought he’d defeated during the Timothy Dalton years are back, cyber-kidnapping the Queen (Claire Foy, earning more than Craig). He and a CIA friend (Rose Mcgowan) must hack a Russian network, Hotspot Algorithm Regarding Viral Electronic Yielding (HARVEY), before it turns everything back to 1964, when Pussy Galore was an appropriate Bond Girl moniker. It’s a race against time, and the only gadget Q’s gifted him is an implant e-reader containing the collected work of Everyday Sexism.

Alternatively, Bond remains a misogynist. When I spoke to Craig, excitement about Monica Bellucci in Spectre was rising. At last: a Bond girl the same age as Bond! And yet, in the film, he has sex with her right after her father’s funeral and leaves minutes later. Why would Bond 25 be any different? Boyle has said his film will be influenced by #Metoo, but it isn’t out until 2019, and Hollywood has a short memory. While I’d love to see a feminist Bond, there’s every chance it could just be a tiresome romp between old 007 and a swimsuit model called Lady Garden.