The topic of who should be the next James Bond once Daniel Craig inevitably hangs up his suit is certainly a contentious one. There are also calls to finally diversify the character for the first time, and make 007 either an actor of colour or even cast a female into the title role (although producers are against this latter idea). It’s a debate that humans could spend many an hour arguing over, which is why it might be a good idea to instead get some help from our robot overloads and get a machine-learning algorithm to help us decide instead.
Largo.ai (via MSN) has done just that, where they looked at certain characteristics of actors and compared them to that of Bond to determine who would be the best fit for the role. And when focused on British actors – given the obviousness Britishness of the actor – Henry Cavill won with a score of 92.3%, followed by Richard Armitage (The Hobbit films, 92%) and Idris Elba (90.9%). Ironically, Cavill was himself previously considered for the role back in 2005 before he ultimately lost out to Craig in the end. He would certainly make a great addition to the Bond suit, though I think more people may be rooting for Elba to give us a black Bond for a change (something I would certainly get behind). You can’t really fault any of those three choices though so this AI may just know what it is talking about.
When the algorithm expanded its search amongst international actors, Karl Urban won out with 96.7%, followed by Chris Evans on 93,9% and Will Smith at 92.9%. However, if the algorithm was to include women into the mix, The Mandalorian’s Gina Carano comes out on top at 97.3% ahead of both Cavill and Urban, followed by Katee Sackhoff (94.4%) and Angelina Jolie (94.2%).
What do you make of the results? Based on the results, it’s hard to argue with the ML algorithms in play here, though you could just as easily argue that perhaps these results were so obvious that we didn’t really need them at.
Last Updated: September 4, 2020
For the Emperor!
September 4, 2020 at 08:42
It is hard to argue with it until it brings in Gina Carano ahead of “proper” actors, both male and female.
I have been rooting for Elba for a while, because I don’t like the current incarnation of Bond. I have felt for a while that Elba could bring back the “old” style of Suave Spy Bond. Cavill could do that as well, as shown in The Man from UNCLE. Either of those two I would buy a ticket to go see. The last few Craig movies have been on my “if there is nothing else on I might go to the cinema for this, else DVD” list. Not the fault per se of Craig, but the direction is just “not Bond” for me and more “action blockbuster”. If I want to see that kind of movie, Mission Impossible does it better.
So a change to Elba or Cavill would be welcome indeed. Heck, even Jane Bond is OK if the story is well written. Heck, it needs to be well written regardless of gender and race, which so many movies forget when changing the demographics and then complain about “lack of support for diversity”
Original Heretic
September 4, 2020 at 09:18
Nail on the head, especially with that last part you mentioned. It must be written well.
I don’t care who is cast, the story needs to be good. And then the acting and directing needs to back it up.
And for the love of Odin, give Bond his gadgets!!!
He’s nothing more than a generic action hero without those. Except more British.
WhiteRock
September 4, 2020 at 10:31
What about a guy like Tom Hardy?
D4m@E
September 4, 2020 at 11:47
Looks-wise? This man should be playing a live-action version of Archer.