It probably goes without saying that the James Bond movies haven’t exactly been great when it comes to treating its females with respect. With the dawn of the #MeToo era, it’s hard to see how the franchise will continue to stay relevant if Bond continues to be a, ahem, “sexist, misogynist, dinosaur.”
Well it appears the filmmakers have taken some steps to fix that issue by bringing in the brilliant Phoebe Waller-Bridge to work on the script for the upcoming Bond film, which is the perfect move from them in order to get 007 up to speed with these modern times.
Having Phoebe onboard as a writer is something of a milestone for the franchise as she is only the second female scribe to work on a Bond film since Johanna Harwood back in the 1960s.
So how exactly will Phoebe tackle this problem of making Bond relevant again in the #MeToo era? Hell, is Bond even relevant anymore is probably the bigger question given the character’s philandering ways aren’t exactly welcome anywhere these ways.
Well according to Phoebe (via Deadline), Bond is “absolutely relevant now” and her approach is to make sure that the film has to treat its female characters “properly” even if he doesn’t.
“There’s been a lot of talk about whether or not [the Bond franchise] is relevant now because of who he is and the way he treats women. I think that’s bollocks. I think he’s absolutely relevant now. It has just got to grow.
“It has just got to evolve, and the important thing is that the film treats the women properly. He doesn’t have to. He needs to be true to this character.”
I’ve got my hopes high that the new Bond film will be something special now that Phoebe is onboard as write, especially after the garbage fire that was Spectre.
If you’re going to get someone good to write your James Bond film so that it is respectful of women during the #MeToo era, you might as well get the genius brain behind Fleabag and Killing Eve to do it.
It’ll be a while before we see what exactly Phoebe as done to the new Bond film’s script as it isn’t scheduled to hit cinemas until April 2020, and that’s not taking into account whether Daniel Craig accidentally injures himself again, but we can definitely expect a refreshing new take at the very least.