Sir Sean Connery’s James Bond was “basically a rapist” who bribed and forced women into sex after fights, the director of the latest 007 film says.
Cary Fukunaga, who has made the upcoming 25th instalment No Time To Die, blasted scenes from the 60s.
The California-born filmmaker, 44, said: “Is it Thunderball or Goldfinger where basically Sean Connery’s character rapes a woman? She’s like, ‘No, no, no’, and he’s like, ‘Yes, yes, yes’. That wouldn’t fly today.”
Cary says he has fought to empower female characters in No Time To Die to “give them equity” with males, with the film being hailed as the first in a new breed of woke Bond movies.
It is said to see Lashana Lynch, 33, – who plays one of two black female main characters – inheriting the 007 code from Bond.
Critics said Fleabag writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge, 36, was brought in to polish the script and “wokeify” the super-spy.
Veteran Bond producer Barbara Broccoli, 61, who has been churning out the action flicks since 1995, admitted the hard-drinking secret agent – who has also been branded racist and homophobic – has a “long history”.
She added: “I think people are coming around – with some kicking and screaming – to accepting that stuff is no longer acceptable. Thank goodness.
“Bond is a character who was written in 1952 and the first film, Dr No, came out in 1962.”
Sir Sean who passed away on October 31, 2020, was the first actor to play the iconic MI6 agent but author Ian Fleming had initially doubted the casting of Sean.
Connery’s selection for the role of Bond owed a lot to Dana Broccoli, wife of producer Albert Broccoli, she’s said to have been vital in persuading her husband that Connery was the man for the job.
Ian Fleming famously said: “He’s not what I envisioned of James Bond looks.”
He also explained: “I’m looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stunt-man,” adding that Connery, who was muscular and stood at 6′ 2″, was unrefined.
Fleming’s girlfriend Blanche Blackwell told him that Connery had the requisite sexual charisma, and the author changed his mind after the success of Dr No.
Not only was his mind changed, but the writer added Connery’s Scottish heritage into the character.
Fleming wrote that Bond’s father was Scottish and from Glencoe in his 1964 novel You Only Live Twice.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk