Hey, it's a business, not an art. If the present-day producers think a black James Bond will bring a bigger boxoffice and video sales, it's their money at risk. None of mine will go to cover their investment, you can be sure of that.
Aside from new writers taking literary license to the extreme in extrapolating how a present-day James Bond would look and act after running out of original material ages ago, there's an aspect to this whole phenomenon which really is bothersome, and should be also to FReepers of any religious persuasion.
Ian Fleming, James Bond's creator, had been rumored for a while to be homosexual. How this got started is anyone's guess. It could have been petty jealousy, or perhaps a sincere dislike for the Scottish aristocrat who did, during WWII, serve His Majesty in Naval Intelligence. Whatever the source, the charges turned out to be total balderdash, as the British would say.
Fleming, just as he made his character James Bond into from the very first novel, was a notorious womanizer. He cheated on his wife, had numerous affairs with married women and reportedly engaged in various sadomasochistic acts with his lovers. His close friends were invariably men, as he thought of women as "pets" with only one function in life.
He led a very active but rather short life, living only until the age of 56. Fleming and his alter ego, Bond, were certainly no role models for men coming of age in the '60s, unless one considers a person like Hugh Hefner to be a suitable role model for male morality.
OK, the early bond films were exciting, well-scripted with magnificent scenery, there's no question about that. But hasn't this horse already run too many races, and isn't it time to put him out to pasture?
Maybe this next Bond adventure will be his last, regardless of who gets selected for the lead role.
It's been cartoon spoofed for a few years now.