Vegas Oddsmakers Say Aaron Taylor-Johnson Will Be the Next James Bond. Don’t Bet on It.
James Bond certainly knows his way around a casino, but even he might raise an eyebrow at who oddsmakers are betting will play him next. According to the latest probabilities from gambling site VegasInsider, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is now the clear favorite to slip into 007’s tux, with odds hovering around 2.4-to-1.
But before anyone bets the house on the 35-year-old Kick-Ass actor, industry sources note the game hasn’t really begun — the cards haven’t even been dealt. In fact, Taylor-Johnson’s frontrunner status may owe less to spy-craft than to spin-craft. His odds have been clearly boosted by a string of U.K. press leaks — most notably in The Sun, which has been touting him as the next Bond ever since Daniel Craig holstered his Walther PPK. In late 2022, the tabloid quoted “insiders” claiming Taylor-Johnson had “impressed” producer Barbara Broccoli during a “top-secret screen test” at Pinewood Studios.
A few months later, another so-called insider claimed: “Bond is Aaron’s job, should he wish to accept it.”
But Rambling’s own insiders point out a few issues with that narrative. Historically, Bond screen tests are tightly controlled 007 rituals — usually involving a scene out of From Russia With Love — and they don’t happen until a director is on board. And in 2022, there was no director. (Denis Villeneuve wasn’t hired until June.) Besides, even if Taylor-Johnson had knocked Broccoli’s socks off at that supposed 2022 test, that shouldn’t be influencing his odds in 2025 — Broccoli and her half brother Michael G. Wilson sold the franchise to Amazon earlier this year. These days, it’s Amy Pascal’s socks that need knocking off. She’s running Bond now.
Vegas handicappers also might have been swayed by a round of recent online tea-leaf reading after Taylor-Johnson’s auspiciously timed deal to become a global ambassador for Omega — the official Bond timepiece — back in May. That was seen by some as a clear sign the role was his. It wasn’t. Otherwise, past Omega ambassadors like Nicole Kidman, George Clooney and Zoë Kravitz would’ve been zipping around in Aston Martins years ago.
What VegasInsider isn’t factoring in is that all of the above — the leaks, the whispers, the watch deal — might actually be hurting Taylor-Johnson’s chances. As Rambling’s insider puts it: “The more you push for the role, the more it can backfire. Wanting it too much can be the best way not to get it.”
Times are so tough these days, even the criminals are thrifting.
On July 18, in the latest affront to Santa Monica, more than a dozen masked marauders stormed the RealReal secondhand luxury boutique on 26th Street — near the Brentwood border — where celebrities from Kim Kardashian and Julianne Moore to Parker Posey and Kate Moss are said to unload their no-longer-needed Hermès, Cartier and Rolex accessories. It was a brazen, broad-daylight smash-and-grab: Surveillance cameras captured the crew looting high-end resale items and loading them into getaway cars with the license plates removed.
This marks the third flash-mob-style hit on the same store in three years — but unlike the previous break-ins, no arrests have yet been made. In fact, investigators are now looking into whether the crew might be linked to a similar gang that hit an Anaheim jeweler just one day earlier. In that case, thieves wielding hammers and pickaxes were chased off when the store owner fired a warning shot.
A spokesperson for the Santa Monica Police Department tells Rambling that detectives are “aware of the recent incident in Anaheim and are coordinating with law enforcement partners to assess any potential connections” — adding, without prompting, that any perceived increase in criminal activity is purely imaginary. “We have not seen a recent spike in organized retail thefts in Santa Monica,” the spokesperson insists. — MERLE GINSBERG
For once, the most talked-about title at San Diego’s Comic-Con wasn’t a Marvel or DC tentpole — it was a dystopian horror story so graphically violent, organizers literally covered it up.
The 6,500 attendees who turned out to see footage of The Long Walk, Lionsgate’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1979 novel about 100 teenage boys forced to compete in a deadly endurance challenge — walk 3 miles an hour or be executed — were shown 20 minutes of the movie. But what they didn’t get to see — because it was blacked out on the screen — was a particularly brutal moment in which a young man’s jaw is blown off by a bullet.
“Fans will get a lot out of it when they see it in theaters,” was about all Garrett Wareing, who plays one of the contestants, would say about the cover-up while speaking to Rambling after the screening.
From the sound of it, shooting the film— directed by Hunger Games alum Francis Lawrence — was almost as brutal as what ended up in the can. The young cast walked miles daily, developing real blisters and bruises. “At some points, we’re not acting,” Wareing confesses. “Those limps you see? Those are real limps.” He recalls one co-star pausing because he thought he had something in his shoe. “He pulls off his Converse, and his socks were just filled with blood,” Wareing says. “I would sit down on the hot road [between takes] and be like, ‘God, this is what peace feels like.’ I never thought asphalt would be so comfortable.”
Still, proving that misery does indeed love company, all the actors claimed to have had a blast on the Winnipeg shoot. Offers co-star Tut Nyuot, “I couldn’t imagine filming this movie with people that I didn’t really get along with.”
This story appeared in the July 30 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
