Tom Hiddleston maybe in talks for Bond (but maybe not)

We have to admit: We have nothing but contempt for how film culture has largely devolved into writing about movies that haven’t yet happened rather than movies that are, you know, done and, like, exist. Shy of superhero movie reviews, the only film writing that gets much attention (i.e., hits) is casting reports and [projectile vomit] second-by-second breakdowns of movie trailers. Nevermind what this is doing to the discourse.Such talk mostly serves the studios, who want audiences to be invested from the get-go, so they’ll storm the gates opening day and pounce on any naysayers.

All this being said: Holy crap, is Tom Hiddleston going to be the next James Bond?

We’re not nerds about everything nerds are nerds about. But we are Bond nerds. Still, as usual with the casting mill circus, the answer to this question is: I dunno, maybe, but also maybe not. Birth Movies Death were fed some credible-ish line about how the English actor is not just a guy the Internet would love to see nursing a shaken martini. He’s a guy who, perhaps dodgy rumors claim, is in “advanced negotiations,” having (maybe) had an actual meeting with 007 film series producer Barbara Broccoli.

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Hiddleston isn’t the only one who’s advanced to that stage in the Bond casting game: Jamie Bell also met with Broccoli. A little further back in line, there’s Gillian Anderson, who’s simply tweeted out a possible joke with her on a 007 poster, and somehow the notion of a she-Bond didn’t completely vanquish the Internet’s legion of Men’s Rights Activists. And, as ever, there’s Idris Elba, who has to face a different, no less insidious type of pushback from dumb traditionalists of a series about an English imperialist trotting the globe, killing people with gizmos.

And again, Daniel Craig isn’t officially Not Bond, so maybe we’re all wasting our time? In fact, you’d be better off not reading this or items like it, but watching Hiddleston (aka “Hiddles”) on TV’s “The Night Manager” and in Ben Wheatley’s phantasmagoric J.G. Ballard adaptation “High-Rise,”which isn’t even a comic book movie at all. Don’t say we didn’t learn you nothin’.