can life stop imitating art already?

James Bond Screenwriters Don’t Know How to Continue the Franchise in the Trump Age

“Skyfall.” Photo: Sony

With the rise of Donald Trump, you’d think that Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, the writers of the last six James Bond movies, would have no shortage of real-life inspiration to plumb for future films. Not so, it turns out, because even for the screwy internal logic of a Bond movie, the twists and turns of reality have made for some overly outrageous suspensions of disbelief. Explaining the dilemma of Bond in the age of Trump, Purvis told The Telegraph that the franchise’s history of mustache-twirling evildoers can’t top true life anymore because: “With people like Trump, the Bond villain has become a reality. So when they do another one, it will be interesting to see how they deal with the fact that the world has become a fantasy.” And, given Brexit and other nationalist movements abroad, it’s more than just Trump that’s challenging the basic Bond worldview: “Each time, you’ve got to say something about Bond’s place in the world, which is Britain’s place in the world … But things are moving so quickly now, that becomes tricky.” The changes have left it so that, “I’m just not sure how you would go about writing a James Bond film now,” Purvis said. Uh, Q, thoughts?

James Bond Writers Call Trump a Bond Villain