The actor was turned down by the 007 camp—but the idea helped him get Uncharted.
Tom Holland is already playing one of the most famous characters in all of pop culture, but at one point he tried, and failed, to play another. In an new interview, Holland admitted that he once pitched the people who control the rights to James Bond on an origin story with him in the lead.
“I had a meeting, after or during Spider-Man 2 [Far From Home], with Sony to pitch this idea of a young Bond film that I’d come up with,” Holland told Total Film Magazine. “It was the origin story of James Bond. It didn’t really make sense. It didn’t work. It was the dream of a young kid, and I don’t think the Bond estate were particularly interested.”
Which, if you saw the most recent Bond film, makes perfect sense. Part of the allure of James Bond is not just that he’s confident, suave, and wise beyond his years—it’s that he’s sophisticated enough to get brand endorsements from high-end adult companies: watches, cars, beer, etc. On paper the idea of Tom Holland as James Bond before he was 007, fumbling around MI6 and getting into adventures, sounds fun. But it humanizes and demystifies him in a way that doesn’t jive with the brand as it currently stands. (Not that it didn’t in the past, with mixed results.)
The brand it does jive with, though, is Uncharted, and that Holland was passionate about an adventure-style origin story impacted him getting that role. “The idea of a young Bond film sparked this idea, in turn, that you could do a Nathan Drake story as an origin story, rather than as an addition to the games. And that opened a conversation,” Holland said.
And so Holland went onto star in Uncharted, which is currently scheduled to hit theaters February 18. Whether or not that film will work remains to be seen, but let us know if you think a young James Bond film could work in any capacity.
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