Amazon MGM Studios has announced the appointment of Denis Villeneuve as the next Bond director, four months after the company acquired creative control from the Broccoli family in February of 2025.
Nearly four years have passed since the last Bond film, No Time to Die, hit UK cinemas in September 2021. There has been fevered speculation over the casting of the new 007, but less attention has been paid to a different question: who, or what, will be the next Bond villain?
A chronological binge-watch of all the Bond films, starting with Dr No (1962), offers more than martinis and tuxedos. It charts a timeline of global technological evolution. Time and again, Q, the MI6 quartermaster whose job it is to source Bond with his gadgets, has presented an array of creative devices, some the product of absurd Fleming fancy, but others inspired by real, cutting-edge innovation.
A lot has changed since 2021, when we last saw 007. The launch of ChatGPT in November 2022 brought the use of AI tools into the mainstream. Their popularity has since soared. The total AI market will be worth upwards of $1trn in 2030, a rise from $103bn in 2023, according to GlobalData. If Villeneuve is to maintain the series’ cultural relevance, AI is likely to play a role, whether in Q’s lab, the villain’s arsenal, or both.
No Time to Die – nanobots and bioweapons
The last Bond film was a classic case of innovative technology projected onto the silver screen. No Time to Die centered on “Heracles”, a DNA-targeting bioweapon that employs nanotechnology to infect and eliminate specific individuals. Initially developed by MI6 to minimise collateral damage, it was modified by sadistic supervillain Safin (Rami Malek) to infect whole families and kill millions.
Real-world events echoed this plot eerily. In March 2018, ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in Salisbury. While father and daughter survived, Dawn Sturgess, a local mother-of-three, became contaminated by the nerve agent and died in Salisbury in July of the same year. Though No Time to Die was scripted before the attack, many drew uncomfortable parallels on its release. Its timing, during the Covid-19 pandemic – another unseen threat – only heightened the film’s uncanny relevance.
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By GlobalDataWhat to expect from the next Bond film: cybersecurity
Recent Bond films have caught on to the relevance of cybersecurity and the digital threat faced daily by individuals and organisations. Spectre (2015), the twenty-fourth Bond film, introduced Max Denbigh, or C, the Director-General of the Joint Security Service, who conspired to grant the criminal organisation SPECTRE access to a global surveillance network, jeopardising a wealth of sensitive intelligence. Blofeld’s data fortress in the Sahara served as a reminder that threats may be waged in code as much as in combat.
Given the exponential growth of the cybersecurity industry, this trend is likely to continue. Global cybersecurity spending will reach over $300bn by 2028, having grown at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8% between 2021 and 2028, according to GlobalData. It is an increasingly pressing issue across all industries, and one that Villeneuve is not likely to ignore.
Could AI be the next Bond nemesis?
AI has not yet featured heavily in the Bond universe. However, a mere glance at a parallel spy franchise shows where the genre is heading. In Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025), the eighth and final film in the series, hero Ethan Hunt battles an AI creation named the Entity, which plots to provoke a global nuclear catastrophe.
Could Bond’s next villain be a machine? It is possible, but unlikely. James Bond is not a science fiction series. The franchise has always taken pride in reflecting evolving realities rather than futuristic fantasy. In any case, part of its charm is the ruthless charisma of a human villain—take Ernst Stavro Blofeld—whose human failings make the character so compelling. But perhaps even this job isn’t safe from AI.
True, Villeneuve is famous for his science fiction work, from Blade Runner 2049 (2017) to Dune (2021, 2024), but he has already pledged to “honour the tradition” of Bond, calling the character “sacred territory.” So, we should expect innovation, not reinvention. What will not change is the role of the Bond series in framing the anxieties and innovations of its time.
