Excellent news for the Princess of Wales and her personal secretaries: the British public now has one thing else to be furiously divided over in addition to her Mom’s Day photograph. Producer Barbara Broccoli, proud proprietor of one of the best title in present enterprise, might or might not have provided Aaron Taylor-Johnson the hallowed function of 007, vacant since Daniel Craig’s Bond shuffled off his martini-drenched mortal coil in No Time to Die. The casting is stunning information to everybody aside from my near-omniscient colleague Radhika Seth, who’s been attempting to foretell who will slip into Bond’s Crockett & Jones Oxfords for years now, with the Marvel actor amongst her frontrunners since phrase unfold that he had achieved a check learn at Pinewood Studios.

It’s The Solar that—perhaps, not likely—“confirmed” this morning that Eon Productions had issued a contract to Taylor-Johnson (whose epithet within the paper is, in fact, “British hunk”), nevertheless it’s solely taken just a few hours for a “manufacturing insider” to inform BBC Information that there’s “no fact within the rumors.” This being a post-truth age, nonetheless, exactly nobody appears to care in regards to the latter a part of that sentence, with verve and vitriol flooding the web in not-quite-equal measure. To summarize the sentiments of these emotionally shaken, not stirred by the announcement: after years of toying with the concept of constructing Bond one thing aside from a Tom Ford-clad fantasy designed to assuage fragile male egos, this casting feels as dry as Die One other Day. (“Ah, patriarchal energy play, we’ve been anticipating you.”)

Which isn’t to say, in fact, that Taylor-Johnson isn’t gifted. The 33-year-old grew to become a family title on the age of 18 due to his starring function within the John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy (2009), Sam Taylor-Wooden’s directorial debut. The pair married in 2012—though not earlier than a lot had been manufactured from their 23-year age hole within the press. Aaron, a Excessive Wycombe native, has labored steadily ever since, with roles in Nocturnal Animals (2016), A Million Little Items (2018), Tenet (2020), and Bullet Practice (2022), the place he proved his action-movie chops alongside Brad Pitt. Taylor-Johnson’s solely touch upon the rumors up to now? “I discover it charming and fantastic that individuals see me in that function,” he informed Numero journal. “I take it as an excellent praise.” As he ought to, when Regé-Jean Web page was additionally a contender.