Four years since Daniel Craig's last outing as 007, the search for his replacement finally has a real timeline attached to it. Producer Amy Pascal, who now oversees Bond alongside David Heyman after Amazon bought creative control from longtime custodians Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, told Deadline recently that “the end of the year is a good bet” for an announcement. Denis Villeneuve is directing Bond 26, with Steven Knight writing, and by Pascal's account the casting search has been deliberately slow: “We are being really, really methodical,” she said. “Daniel Craig is a hard act to follow. And it's got to be something that is stirring, and exciting, and different.”
Callum Turner has been the bookmakers' favorite for months, thanks to a mix of factors that read like a checklist for the role: recognizable but not overexposed, visibly comfortable in a suit, and coming off a well-reviewed turn as a World War II bomber pilot in Masters of the Air. He's also engaged to Dua Lipa, which hasn't hurt the tabloid math. Turner himself keeps deflecting the question, telling one interviewer, “I know as much as you do — really, I know as much as you do.”
Behind him, the shortlist gets more interesting. Jacob Elordi, fresh off his first Oscar nomination for Frankenstein and a turn as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, has the director's-actor momentum but is Australian, which hasn't historically ruled anyone out. Jack Lowden's six seasons leading Apple's Slow Horses give him an unusually direct spy-credentials pitch, and his name reportedly surfaced on a podcast from broadcaster Richard Osman as someone “definitely being considered,” though not confirmed. Then there's Jack Barton, a near-unknown whose credits include Poor Things and an SAS drama, said by some reports to be the actual frontrunner despite never having led a film.
