Will busy Lupita fall for James Bond’s charms?
007 PRODUCER Barbara Broccoli and Cary Joji Fukunaga, director of Bond 25, have been wooing Lupita Nyong’o to join Daniel Craig in the next adventure in the Ian Fleming franchise that’s now in pre-production.
It’s a fact that they want the actress, who won an Oscar for Steve McQueen’s 12 Years A Slave and plays Wakandan spy Nakia in Ryan Coogler’s box-office and cultural phenomenon Black Panther — a best picture Oscar contender on Sunday. But whether she is available remains to be seen.
That Marvel movie has catapulted her way up Hollywood’s A-list. Before that, she was already a force, thanks to the aforementioned films — and because of her delicious turn as Maz Kanata in the Star Wars pictures.
She’s back in Episode IX, which Disney is planning to release in December.
Plus, she’s generated heaps of attention with the trailer for Jordan Peele’s eerie Us, out next month.
I mentioned a rumour about Emma Stone being in Bond 25 and an executive out here dismissed it as nonsense.
But when I ran Lupita’s name past the same person, the response was: ‘How the hell do you know about that?!’ Nothing is confirmed. Scott Z. Burns has been reworking an earlier script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, but the last I heard he’s only halfway through it.
Meanwhile, as I reported last year, Ralph Fiennes, Lea Seydoux, Naomie Harris (maybe with an expanded Moneypenny role) and Ben Whishaw are on their marks, ready to head back into Bond world.