Just as rumour reaches fever pitch over Idris Elba’s potential casting as the first black James Bond, Ovitz has revealed that perhaps the history of the Bond film could have been altered forever had he taken Jackson seriously.
As reported by Metro UK, Ovitz’s new memoirs Who is Michael Ovitz? mentions a meeting with Jackson and his business partner Ron Meyer, where Jackson passionately raised the idea of being the “star in an action movie”, specifically 007. Though this doesn’t seem outrageously absurd, Ovitz then bizarrely details Jackson dropping his hat in guacamole immediately afterward.
“Then the blob fell off, and Ron totally lost it. I cracked up, too, and Michael stalked out. I found him and explained for 15 minutes that we hadn’t been laughing at him…” Ovitz writes.
“Finally, Michael’s face cleared. ‘OK, Ovitz. OK,’ he said. ‘But I want to play James Bond.’ I am proud to report I didn’t laugh, this time.”
Ovitz brought Jackson down from the idea by telling him he was “too thinly built…too sensitive” and claiming he wouldn’t be “credible as a block of stone”. Here at Mixdown, we think Ovitz made a poor decision – a softly spoken, smooth walkin’ and fedora adorned James Bond would have been a spectacular sight.
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