There's a huge amount of intrigue surrounding who will be chosen to play the next James Bond. However, many of the most popular suggestions - Henry Cavill, Idris Elba, and Jamie Dornan, for example - are being aged out of the role due to how long it's taking to find Daniel Craig's successor.
Last year, producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson said they were looking to find an actor willing to commit to the role for the long haul. The latter later followed up by making it clear that while they're not planning to cast a considerably younger actor as the new 007, they would like whoever is cast to play the iconic spy for a decade or more.
Someone who would be the perfect age at 32, is Kick-Ass, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Bullet Train star Aaron Taylor-Johnson. In fact, multiple sources have claimed he's met with Broccoli and Wilson to discuss playing 007, and he would neither nor confirm those claims during a recent conversation with Vanity Fair (via ActioNewz.com).
"It’s flattering," he said of the rumours. "You can have something really positive [written about you], but you can also have something really negative that can circulate."
"You just want to stay in your lane, stay grounded, stay around the people that you love and love you back, and stay in that world. Because the moment you start believing the sh*t people say about you, you’ve lost your f***ing mind. You’ve lost it."
That's not exactly a denial!
Taylor-Johnson would go on to discuss other opportunities presented to him after starring in last year's action-packed Bullet Train, revealing he didn't even have to audition for Kraven the Hunter.
"The first one was Kraven, Marvel’s new antihero in the Spider-Man Universe. With Bullet Train, there was an auditioning process, screen test, and many different things to get through. And then out came the offer for Kraven [without any audition]. That was special. I shot that last year with Russell Crowe, who was brilliant."
Marvel fans remain sceptical about a Kraven story without Spider-Man, and we can only hope that movie doesn't derail his chances of becoming Bond. The actor is a legit talent, though, and there's a lot of support online when it comes to the possibility of him following in Daniel Craig's footsteps.