Exclusive: Henry Cavill In Talks For James Bond Villain
Our sources tell us Henry Cavill is negotiating to play one of the always instantly classic villains of the James Bond franchise.
A lot of leading men prefer to play the heroes, but at least one of Hollywood’s most famous leading hunks may be taking on the world’s most famous secret agent as a bad guy. Our trusted and proven sources tell us Henry Cavill is negotiating to play a villain in the next James Bond film. We don’t know the name of the antagonist but considering the franchise, it’s bound to be something very European and eccentric like Dr. Ernst von MaliceFace.
While he may be best known for his two heroic roles — as both Superman in Man of Steel and other movies, and as Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher — Henry Cavill has already proven his chops as someone who could make a killer James Bond bad guy. With his “reloading” fists in 2018’s Mission: Impossible — Fallout, Cavill’s August Walker gave Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt the fight of his life. As a Bond villain, however, he may be expected to do more of strapping heroes to tables with buzzsaws built into them, dropping them in tanks with cybernetic piranha, or something along those lines.
This news would seem to confirm that, unless Henry Cavill is playing both James Bond and the secret agent’s evil twin, the Enola Holmes star is out of the running to play 007. Cavill has long been considered one of the frontrunners to succeed Daniel Craig, but while Mike Myers can play both the hero and villain of his Austin Powers films, for Cavill or anyone else to do that in the Bond franchise would be a little too weird.
That Henry Cavill might be officially denied the part of James Bond was something we wondered about a month ago, when we received word Cavill was making another espionage thriller in collaboration with Matthew Vaughn, director of Apple Studios’ upcoming Argylle. Considering both Argylle and the so far unannounced film would find Cavill playing secret agents, we speculated this could either mean Cavill was definitely out as Bond, or that at the very least it would hurt his chances.
Regardless, it would make sense if Henry Cavill is hungry to be a part of either the James Bond narrative or another popular franchise. In too short an interval to not feel devastating, Cavill regained and lost the mantle of Superman while leaving Netflix’s The Witcher for good. There continue to be conflicting stories about why Cavill won’t be playing Geralt of Rivia anymore, including showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich showing the star in a negative light by telling Vulture that Cavill was “annoying” while initially campaigning for the role.
For whatever reason Henry Cavill won’t be fighting monsters on The Witcher anymore, his future in the James Bond franchise could be promising, though our sources say don’t expect him to play the good guy. He will, however, be playing a protagonist secret agent in Argylle when the film premieres on Apple TV+ later this year.
