Miss Moneypenny Returns To Field Work In ‘Bond 24’ [Rumor]

Miss Eve Moneypenny, despite happily trading guns, travel and chase scenes for filing, scheduling and getting Ralph Fiennes coffee at the end of Skyfall, will return to field duty as an agent in the upcoming Bond 24. At least, that’s the rumor.

Though there’s not much set in stone about the next Bond film (aside from Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes), Brendon Connelly of Bleeding Cool has been following rumors of a female MI6 agent in the next film who will join 007 in the field. The first rumors apparently placed Penelope Cruz in Bond 24 as a new character, but those rumors were seemingly just that.

But fun fact: Cruz is the wife of Javier Bardem, who played Skyfall‘s villain.

Anyway, the latest logic puts Naomie Harris’ Eve Moneypenny back in the saddle as an MI6 agent. She was briefly Bond’s partner in Skyfall, and Bond 24 will sort of promote her to full-on side-kick status.

This new information all comes from Baz Bamigboye of Mail Online. Despite the fact that Daily Mail is the news equivalent of a sewage processing plant (they’ve gotten people, including us, in trouble before), Connelly trusts Bamigboye’s claims, citing his “very good track record” with Bond stories.

But we’re not quite convinced. Yeah, it sucks that rebooted-Moneypenny suffered the same fate as her ’60s-onward predecessors, even if it did make for a nice thematic loop-around back to Dr. No. Bringing Harris’ Moneypenny back was a given, but making her an agent again after she so firmly decided to shackle herself to a desk would be a narrative stretch.

Furthermore, Bond 24 is headed up by the exact same creative team that made Skyfall such a success. Same screenwriter, same director, same cast (per the new order established at the end of the last film). So… how are they going to go back on Moneypenny’s characterization convincingly without seeming cheap?

Don’t get me wrong, I think that Moneypenny would make a fantastic field agent and a wonderful partner to Craig’s Bond. I’m one of the few who actually enjoyed their chemistry, however brief their scenes were, in Skyfall. My issue is just that they never should have put Moneypenny behind the desk to begin with. I figured she was M’s iconic secretary from the get-go, before the “twist” reveal at the end, but figured the agent role was a character reboot, and I bought it just fine.

Anyway, I’d love to see her return to the field in Bond 24. It just has to be more convincing than a one-line “Well, all of MI6’s agents are dead. Again. Moneypenny, I know you swore you’d never return to the field, but we need you to become Bond’s partner so we can provide him with a strong yet stock female character who serves the story as a forced intellectual challenge to 007 instead of a mere physical throwaway.”

Please be smarter than that, Bond 24.