Halle Berry Says Her James Bond Spinoff Was Axed Because Hollywood Wasn’t Ready For A ‘Black Female Action Star’
MGM
Halle Berry revealed in a new interview that she almost starred in a James Bond spinoff following the success of 2002’s Die Another Day, but the studio behind the film wasn’t willing to bet money on a “black female action star.” The actress broke the news in a wide-ranging interview with Variety, in which she opened up about paving the way for black women in Hollywood.
Berry’s role as Jinx Johnson in Die Another Day was considered progressive at the time of the film’s release. It marked one of the few times a Bond Girl got to play the hero alongside the title character, played by Pierce Brosnan in the 2002 movie. Being a woman of color made the role even more notable, but when it came to getting her own movie, MGM balked at the notion.
Berry told Variety that Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson lobbied for her character to get her own spinoff, but the $80 million budget was too much for MGM. “It was very disappointing,” Berry said. “It was ahead of its time. Nobody was ready to sink that kind of money into a Black female action star. They just weren’t sure of its value. That’s where we were then.”
Instead, Berry got the opportunity to play Catwoman in a standalone movie about the Batman character, but the film was a critical and commercial flop. “People said to me, ‘You can’t do that. You’ve just won the Oscar,’” Berry said about her decision to make a superhero movie. The project came along shortly after Berry became the only black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress for 2001’s Monster’s Ball. “Because I didn’t do Jinx, I thought, ‘This is a great chance for a woman of color to be a superhero. Why wouldn’t I try this?’”
Berry went on to say that she noticed warning signs while making the failed film. “The story didn’t feel quite right,” she said about a plot that involved a female villain who runs a cosmetics company. “I remember having that argument: ‘Why can’t Catwoman save the world like Batman and Superman do? Why is she just saving women from a face cream that cracks their face off?’ But I was just the actor for hire. I wasn’t the director. I had very little say over that.”
To this day, Berry remains the only black woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress. “It’s one of my biggest heartbreaks,” she told Variety, explaining that she didn’t open a door for black actresses as she had hoped. “Just because I won an award doesn’t mean that, magically, the next day, there was a place for me,” she added. “I was just continuing to forge a way out of no way.”
