https://www.resetera.com/threads/bonds-number-is-up-black-female-actor-is-the-new-007.129096/#post-22767867
This is great news for representation, but anybody thinking this has an actual longer-term implication is misguided, I think. The franchise character is James Bond 007, not whatever other agent takes the 007 number, and next movie once Craig is out they will inevitably cast another man to be James Bond. I don't think they have the guts to actually make it a female led franchise or stray that far from Fleming's character.
I think there's a chance for Bond to be a black man next time, though. They've acknowledged the thirst for Idris in the role too many times, and though Idris is probably very close to aging out of Bond (considering whoever takes it has to be willing to sit in the role for a decade and Idris is only a few years younger than Craig), but there's a bunch of young black British actors who'd be great for it.
However... EON has had ambitions for a female-led spin-off for years. They first kicked around the idea for Michelle Yeoh's character in Tomorrow Never Dies, then they actually had a script for a solo movie for Halle Berry's character from Die Another Day... but then Die Another Day was terrible and a combination of the Bourne movies and real-world events like 9/11 turned the espionage movie genre upside down, so that got canned alongside another Brosnan movie to make way for the Craig reboot.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that the Bond producers have talked multiple times in the past about setting up a secondary franchise within the Bond universe to work as a 'Winter Olympics' to the main Bond's 'Summer Olympics' (their analogy, not mine), and they talked a lot about it in a pre-MCU world... so you could certainly see Lynch's character being a potential opening for that again. And maybe this time that'll work.
I just hope she doesn't get offed or incapacitated in the course of this film (which is usually the fate of other 00s in this franchise). I'd generally like Craig's supporting cast (Wright, Fiennes, Wishaw, Harris and now hopefully Lynch) stick around in a continuity-free way into his successor's movies.
Why did you call Daniel Craig by his last name and Idris Elba by his first name?
Slickness levels critical
James Bond the character, and James Bond the franchise are too well steeped in the public consciousness and have too many iconic parts that just do not work with woke-swapping that whatever changes they try and push through are going to get thrown out in the next reboot.
Like, sure, you can make sherlock holmes gay black ironsides if you want, but its still going to go back to deerstalker hat, drug addiction, 'on the spectrum' personality, because those are the things that literally make that character
that character.
for better or for worse, James Bond is a serial shagging, globetrotting, gadget toting, fancy car driving, shaken-not-stirred martini drinking, remorseless contracted killer for his country in a nice suit and a 'no fucks were given about their death' quip after an execution.