Jenna Ortega weighed in on the trend of remaking iconic films with female leads.
The Wednesday star was doing an interview with MTV along with her Beetlejuice Beetlejuice co-star Catherine O’Hara. Host Josh Horowitz asked Ortega’s thoughts on other potential sequels — like would she be interested in starring in a sequel to another one of director Tim Burton’s classics, Edward Scissorhands, which could hypothetically be called Edith Scissorhands with Ortega in the Johnny Depp role?
While Ortega and O’Hara initially found the idea funny, Ortega quickly added, “I love that there’s a lot more female leads nowadays, I think that’s so special, but we should have our own,” she said. “I don’t like it when it’s like a spinoff — I don’t want to see like ‘Jamie Bond.’ You know? I want to see another badass.”
The comment comes amid another press interview getting some attention, which also brought up the idea of re-thinking James Bond. At the Venice International Film Festival on Tuesday, Daniel Craig appeared with filmmaker Luca Guadagnino in support of their film Queer, where Craig has sex scenes with costar Omar Apollo.
Craig — whose version of Bond was killed off in 2021’s No Time to Die — was asked if Queer meant that Bond might identify as LGBTQ+ someday, and Guadagnino shut down the question, “Guys, let’s be adults in the room for a second.”
The idea of shaking up — not just stirring — the straight, white and often chauvinistic James Bond has been a topic of discussion for years. The franchise’s longtime producer Barbara Broccoli has previously expressed a view that echoes Ortega’s take, telling The Hollywood Reporter in 2021, “I think [the next James Bond] will be a man because I don’t think a woman should play James Bond,” she said. “I believe in making characters for women and not just having women play men’s roles. I don’t think there are enough great roles for women, and it’s very important to me that we make movies for women about women. He should be British, so British can be any [ethnicity or race].”
There have also certainly been popular films which have offered a female James Bond-like character, such as 2017’s well-regarded action film Atomic Blonde starring Charlize Theron, 2010’s Salt starring Angelina Jolie, and 2021’s Marvel hit Black Widow starring Scarlett Johansson. Also, while not a film franchise’s central character, Rebecca Ferguson was widely considered outstanding in her fan favorite role as an ex-MI6 intelligence agent Ilsa Faust Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and several sequels.