Werner Herzog Wants To Play A Bond Villain And Why Is That Not Happening Immediately

Jack Reacher is going to get a major reconsideration one day. It was accepted well enough in 2012, with folks taking light shots at it for being the most Tom Cruise movie Tom Cruise had ever made. But the fact is Christopher McQuarrie directed the hell out of it, and its cast has blossomed in the past four years into a big ol’ pile of household names (if it’s the household of a film nerd, at any rate): Richard Jenkins, on everyone's hot list since Bone Tomahawk; Jai Courtney, the formerly hated breakout star of Suicide Squad; David Oyelowo, acclaimed star of Selma; that one guy from the more recent X-Men movies and Fury Road; and of course Rosamund Pike, two years away from her amazing turn in Gone Girl. Jack Reacher is packed with bona fide stars.

The unlikeliest of the bunch, though, is the actor playing the film’s villain, moonlighting director Werner Herzog. Herzog’s casting might have contributed to folks being gently dismissive of Jack Reacher, but he’s genuinely great in the role of The Zec, an icy, terrifying Russian crime lord. Herzog gets a couple of supervillain speeches in the film and they’re delightful.

Maybe that’s why it’s exciting to hear that the director wants to play a Bond villain.

Speaking to Business Insider about his new Netflix film Into the Inferno, Herzog threw down the gauntlet:

"I think I would be a good villain in a James Bond movie...They were fairly weak the last half-dozen of villains in James Bond movies. They weren't that convincing."

Putting aside Herzog's needless slam of Javier Bardem, Mads Mikkelsen and others, can we just take this moment to say to Eon Productions “Yes. Yes, please make this happen.” Herzog’s line delivery in Jack Reacher, as well as his countless documentaries, have the same chilling, not-quite human cadence of the best Bond villains of old. I can hear him now, saying things like Hugo Drax’s sick burn “James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.” or Dr. No’s catty “I only gratify your curiosity because you're the one man capable of appreciating what I've done and keeping it to himself...Unfortunately I misjudged you. You are just a stupid policeman whose luck has run out.” Herzog's droll menace would be an almost campy throwback to the classic era, while still feeling very much of the now.

I suspect somewhere Eon is concocting a script to lure Daniel Craig back for one more film; do you think adding Herzog as the villain would sweeten the deal?