If you’re only reading headlines, you might assume that two men named Jack, one guy named Callum, and maybe even someone named Jacob are all wrestling around right now in front of Amazon executives to prove who is the most James Bond-y of the bunch. In articles from The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline, along with the requisite social media posts that have followed, the general public has been told that the casting process for the next cinematic James Bond is happening behind closed doors, and it’s basically like American Idol. Now there are finalists! Who will win? Will the last two men have to do an eyebrow competition, in which they each try to raise their eyebrows even quirkier than Roger Moore?
Let’s take a breath, sip a martini, and see if we can put some sense into these rumors. Is there any truth to the sensational headlines about the current, supposed Bond finalists: Callum Turner, Jack O’Connell and Jack Lowden? Who is in? Who is out? Here’s what we actually know about the James Bond casting process as of late October, and what the headlines are leaving out.
Are there really three James Bond “finalists”?
According to Borys Kit at The Hollywood Reporter, as of October 21: Callum Turner and Jack Lowden are all possibly doing screen tests that “could begin as early as Friday,” which Kit attributes to “two sources.”
Kit is a veteran entertainment journalist, so there’s almost certainly some truth to whatever his sources are giving him. But if you dig into his reporting a bit more, you’ll find that other anonymous tipsters have noted: “It is unclear who else may be testing. Sources said at least three actors are part of the action, but another source says up to five may be putting on the tux to see how it fits.”
So, even based on the source of this reporting, there could be three to five actors still screen-testing for James Bond. Because of all the reporting, it seems that Turner and Lowden are certainly in that mix. (It would be shocking, positively shocking, if they weren’t.) But according to all the reporting, at this point, those are the only two names confirmed.
Jack O’Connell and Jacob Elordi are (probably) out for James Bond
So, while there might be five guys still in the running, and two of them are almost certainly Lowden and Turner, two other names that have been floating around for a while seem to be out: Jack O’Connell and Jacob Elordi. And although Kit’s Hollywood Reporter piece has a photo of O’Connell at the top of that article, according to the actual article, O’Connell is out, and so is Jacob Elordi. Here’s the exact quote: “Jack O’Connell (Sinners) was rumored to initially be in the mix, but that is apparently not the case, according to sources. And despite some reports, Euphoria and Frankenstein star Jacob Elordi is not testing.”
That said, on October 22, Deadline, citing different sources, claimed that O’Connell was three of four finalists. Obviously, these reports provide both a consensus and a contradiction: The consensus is: there are names we don’t know about yet. And the contradiction is that O’Connell is either all the way out, or still very much in; Deadline says O’Connell is in. THR says he’s out.
Either way, it’s important to remember that these men —from O’Connell to Elordi—weren’t really in a massive Hunger Games of James Bond casting, and then eliminated. We actually don’t know—even The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline don’t know for certain—exactly how this process has been working. There have been few public statements from Amazon MGM, though producer Amy Pascal has indicated that news about casting would probably be confirmed before the end of 2026.
But as of now, literally all the reports about James Bond casting are not coming from a direct source, but rather from anonymous insiders. If you were James Bond, trying to get information about intel leaking out from a certain part of the world, you probably wouldn’t trust any of these leaks until something concrete happened. So that’s where Bond fans are at right now: We’ve been given some fuzzy intel; we’ve heard from more than one insider, but we won’t really have a sense of who the new 007 is until he tells us himself.
James Bond 26 is expected to start filming next year. There is no release date announced yet.
More James Bond
- 1964 Classic, Which is the Highest-Rated James Bond Movie, Ranked Among ‘Greatest Action Thriller Masterpieces of All-Time’
- All 25 Official James Bond Movies Are Streaming in One Place Again — With a Bonus
- ‘Every Time a New Bond Picture Became a Smash Hit, I Tore Out My Hair’—The Star Who Turned Down James Bond
- James Bond 26: Everything We Know—and What’s Still a Secret
