BOND 24 Is Officially One Leiter Lighter

If you’ve read this far, you’re pretty much up to speed.  Jeffrey Wright, during an interview for Mockingjay, Part 1 with Slashfilm, answered a parting question about his participation in Bond 24 with “No. Felix is going to be playing Beetee next fall or whenever it comes out.”

I don’t know what Beetee is, but sad news just the same. Maybe Wright’s got the right idea, though. We Bond fans like when Felix Leiter shows up, but has he ever really been interestingly utilized in anything but Licence To Kill? Leiter’s mostly a walk-on role, of negligible value since Dr. No. But hey, we dig the guy - possibly due to his easygoing nature in the books, where he’s half-eaten by a shark in his second appearance and just sort of rolls with it, leaving the CIA to become a hook-handed Pinkerton and Bond’s drinking buddy whenever 007 hits the States. Leiter’s a good dude, even if he’s kind of useless in a lot of the movies.

There’s always the chance Wright’s been recast in Bond 24 - Sean Connery burned through five different Leiters, and Timothy Dalton had one for each film - but it’s a different world now, and the continuity-obsessed fans of today have a hard enough time getting their heads around a new Bond, so it’s more likely that Leiter’s just MIA and SOL this go-round. Maybe next time, Felix!