Alternative 007's Next Bond Poll Result

If you've been visiting this site for a while you may recall we had a next James Bond poll running for a number of years. Sadly, the hosting company we used went kaput and our poll disappeared but fear not because we were keeping a close eye on the statistics and have finally got around to sharing the result. It's safe to say that the poll was completely dominated by the actors in first and second place and together they collected around 70% of the votes that were cast. We think their online female fan clubs might just have had something to do with that.

The interesting thing about the poll from our point of view was how the popular "next Bond" choices of the moment (Michael Fassbender, Henry Cavill, Tom Hardy) didn't register much at all as far as the voting went. Incidentally, we are not overly thrilled yet at the prospect of a Tom Hardy Bond here at Alternative 007 as we don't think he really looks the part and is a bit on the short side and these are two of our ever constant moans about Daniel Craig. Wouldn't Hardy be more of the same? Possibly his action lead role in the next Mad Max will allow us to judge him more closely.

We can reasonably excuse Fassbender's low percentage because he was added to the poll at a later date. Cavill didn't make a huge dent in the poll either but to be fair this was largely before Man of Steel and Cavill's profile is much higher now - especially in regards to online fandom. By the time Batman vs Superman (or whatever they eventually choose to call it) and the Justice League swing around there will be few people on the planet who don't know who Henry Cavill is. If we started another poll now we would expect Cavill to have a much stronger showing.

The identity of the next James Bond actor is currently difficult to predict because the recurring candidates of old (Clive Owen, Hugh Jackman etc) are long gone from the potential Bond lottery and even the likes of Fassbender and Tom Hardy are already about the same age that Daniel Craig was when he made Casino Royale. The longer Craig sticks around (and he doesn't seem to have much else to do career wise) the more unlikely it is that we'll ever see Fassbender or Hardy in the James Bond shake-up for real.

Henry Cavill has time on his side and would be a popular choice so it will be interesting to see if EON ever approach him again in the future. Would Cavill be too busy and too big a star by then to be fussed about the part he nearly won back in 2005? It's hard to say but the actor has always spoken of his desire to play James Bond and at the time of writing has done nothing to suggest he wouldn't want the part should it come his way again.

Anyway, without further ado, these were the top three in our online next James Bond poll:

One of the stars of The Hobbit films, Armitage has long been a popular suggestion in next Bond discussions on forums and trounced the competition in our poll. He's 6'2, has dark handsome looks, can do action (he played an SAS soldier in the television mini-series Strike Back), can be light and charming (guest starred in that awful but inexplicably popular sitcom The Vicar of Dibley), and his star and profile is at last on the rise after years of languishing on British television. The problem? Armitage is only three or four years younger than Daniel Craig and will be probably be too old to be seriously considered when the role is vacant again. We do think that he would have been a great candidate in 2005 though and are still puzzled that he seemed to be completely absent from all the 007 speculation surrounding dozens of actors at the time.

Butler seems to have been a James Bond contender forever but the ship has sailed now as he's only a couple of years younger than Daniel Craig and - like Armitage - will be too old for a franchise looking to start afresh post-Craig. Regardless, Butler polled strongly for a clear second place position and was neck and neck with Armitage for a while. Would Butler have made a good James Bond? We think he would have been a decent shout circa 2005 for a screentest but his plethora of forgettable romcoms and action films have probably dulled any enthusiasm we might once have had for a Butler Bond.

Some way behind Armitage and Butler but Christian Bale managed to accrue a solid number of votes to bring up third place in our poll. Although Bale is the youngest of the three actors who topped our poll this is another ship that has probably left the harbour and disappeared over the horizon. It's doubtful that he'd do something like James Bond now after a Batman trilogy. He has plenty of good work flying his way so why lock himself into another franchise? We do feel though that the Batman Begins era Bale could potentially have been a great Bond. It's not difficult at all to watch those gadget scenes with Bale and Morgan Freeman and imagine he's James Bond having his Q briefing.

- GH

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