Director Sam Mendes’ Spectre is already a controversial addition to the James Bond canon, with many hotly debating its status in the 007 franchise six years later (the comments section on our recent episode of James Bond Revisited got wild). One thing that would have no doubt made it even more controversial was a mercifully scrapped plan to reveal that Ernst Stavro Blofeld, perhaps the most legendary 007 villain of all time, was none other than Ralph Fiennes’ M in Spectre.
Fiennes himself explained the situation on a recent episode of the Happy Sad Confused podcast hosted by Josh Horowitz (excerpted by ScreenRant). In it, Fiennes explained how he resisted the idea to make his M, a.k.a. Gareth Mallory, that infamous bad guy:
“I think I can say now that I had to fight off an attempt by Sam (Mendes) in ‘Spectre’ to make M – I said I don’t want to play M and then you turn around and make him the bad guy. M is never the bad guy. So I had to have some pretty intense discussions with Sam saying, ‘This is not fine with me…’ It was like he was Blofeld or something, but that was a red line.”
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Of course, in the finished film Blofeld was played by Christoph Waltz, whose interpretation of the character also turned out to be divisive among fans. However, he was still brought back as a secondary villain in No Time to Die, a move welcomed by some 007 fans, but hated by others.
Theoretically, Fiennes time as M has come to an end with the Daniel Craig era of Bond films having wrapped up. (Then again, Judi Dench made the transition between the Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig continuities just fine.) However, if you want to get a taste of what Fiennes might have been like had he played James Bond himself, check out Matthew Vaughn’s The King’s Man, which features the well-loved actor sinking his teeth into an atypically action-driven role. It’s a lot of fun.
Does anyone think it would have made sense to make M Blofeld in Spectre? Let us know in the talkbacks.
