New James Bond Movie Will Introduce Lashana Lynch as Female 007, Reports Say

British actress Lashana Lynch, who starred as Captain Marvel’s best friend in the recent Marvel blockbuster, is reportedly in the running to play a new 007 in the next James Bond movie. Lynch will reportedly not be playing James Bond, but instead a new spy character who gets a new license to kill in the upcoming 25th movie.

Sources told The Mail on Sunday that Killing Eve creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a writer on the new movie, added the new character in the script. According to the Mail, the new movie will feature Bond leaving MI6 to be replaced by Lynch.

Although not much is known officially about the plot for Bond 25, the Mail‘s source claims it begins with Bond (Daniel Craig) trying to enjoy retirement in Jamaica before M (Ralph Fiennes) calls him up to tell him the world is in danger. During this scene, M introduces a new 007, played by Lynch.

“Bond, of course, is sexually attracted to the new female 007 and tries his usual seduction tricks, but is baffled when they don’t work on a brilliant, young black woman who basically rolls her eyes at him and has no interest in jumping into his bed,” the source claims. “Well, certainly not at the beginning.”

The source also claimed the term “Bond girls” was banned on the set, and that all women in the film are being addressed as “Bond women.”

Waller-Bridge, best known for creating Killing Eve and starring in, creating and writing the acclaimed sitcom Fleabag, was brought in to make sure the franchise could stay up-to-date in the #MeToo era. Daniel Craig reportedly brought in Waller-Bridge himself. She will be the first credited female writer on a Bond film since Johanna Harwood, who co-wrote Dr. No and From Russia With Love.

Lynch, 31, earned a breakout role earlier this year as Maria Rambeau in Captain Marvel, opposite Brie Larson. Her other credits include Fast Girls, Silent Witness, Death in Paradise, Still Star-Crossed and Crims.

The new film is being directed by Beasts of No Nation director Cary Joji Fukunaga, making him the first American director of a Bond movie. Bohemian Rhapsody star Rami Malek also joined the fold as the new film’s villain.

The cast also includes Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q, Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter and Lea Seydoux as Dr. Madeleine Swann. Christoph Waltz, who starred as the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in Spectre, will at least make a cameo in Bond 25.

The new movie hits theaters in the U.S. on April 8, 2020. As usual with Bond movies, it will open in the U.K. earlier, on April 3.

Photo credit: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures