James Bond: THIS actor now has VERY good odds of replacing Daniel Craig

Craig’s (presumably) final outing as the iconic spy goes into production in the New Year, ahead of a release on Valentine’s Day 2020. It won’t be until after that when bosses make plans for his successor – but punters have been betting on contenders nonetheless. Now, as Tom Hiddleston, James Norton, Tom Hardy and Richard Madden remain the frontrunners, more names are joining the list further down.

After calls earlier this year for Crazy Rich Asians and A Simple Favour star Henry Golding to take the role, he has been given very desirable odds.

Ladbrokes have just installed him at 20/1, as have Coral.

For contrast, that’s the same odds as Sam Heughan, Orlando Bloom and Jack Huston.

Ahead of them all are Tom Hiddleston (6/4), James Norton (5/2), Richard Madden (5/1) and Tom Hardy (6/1).

Idris Elba remains in the frame at 8/1, despite constantly ruling himself out.

Henry Cavill and Aidan Turner are on 16/1, while “any female” can be backed on 12/1.

Cary Fukunaga is directing the next James Bond outing with Craig, and recently spoke out about what he loves about the series.

“Over the years, you’ve seen a lot of different iterations not only of Bond but of films that have mimicked it or copied it,” he told IndieWire.

“So I think the exciting part actually is going to the original source and being able to play in a sandbox.

“Genres come with tropes and expectations and in the post-modern era, you can deliver exactly what’s expected of the genre, or you can try to twist it in an intelligent way which subverts the genre but still stays faithful to it.”

The filmmaker added: “So, when you’re drawing from a certain style, you can play with audience expectations while still surprising them — and the nature of creativity is that limitations are often times good things, because when you’re facing the overwhelming vastness of creative potential, to have defined routes to take for a story or style are helpful in determining how far you want to veer from it.”

Bond 25 will be released in cinemas on February 14, 2020.