Who is the new James Bond? A fresh insider report calls every rumored 2026 frontrunner "bogus"
If you've spent 2026 emotionally investing in the Bond rumor mill — Callum Turner is locked! No wait, Jacob Elordi! Actually it's Jack Lowden, or Paul Mescal, or Harris Dickinson, or a Jack Barton from Heartstopper — I have news, and the news is that you can log off.
Puck's Matthew Belloni, one of the few Hollywood insiders with an actual track record on this movie, just took a flamethrower to the entire discourse.
__IMG__
"Bogus." His word.
In his What I'm Hearing newsletter, Belloni reports that Amazon MGM has only now started sending out test deals to the actors genuinely in the running:
"Those lists of contenders circulating online are bogus," he wrote — adding, of the timeline: "anyone who says they know who Bond is now… doesn't."
A test deal, for the uninitiated, is the contract an actor signs before a screen test — salary, exclusivity, years of your life, all pre-negotiated so the studio holds the leverage. It's the same machinery studios have used on franchise roles for decades, and its existence means the search is finally real. It does not mean anyone has won.
The actual timeline
- Next couple of weeks: the real audition pool takes shape
- Later this fall: formal screen tests for director Denis Villeneuve
- After that: an announcement, presumably delivered while I refresh my feed like it's a group project grade
So who is the new James Bond? Nobody. Officially, gloriously, nobody — and everyone who told you otherwise, from the betting markets to that Page Six shortlist with screen tests supposedly happening in early September, was selling vibes. The martini remains unshaken, unstirred, and unpoured.
Earlier we wrote: Anne Hathaway says Cate Blanchett’s performance in this historical drama is “absolutely extraordinary”
