A Wannabe Bond Villain Wants To Own James Bond

A South African con artist is currently attempting to dismantle the American Government instead of spending time with more than one of his (presumably) 200 children. He has amassed an insane amount of wealth (on paper) and is using it to be a reprehensible, racist, unfunny piece of garbage. I don’t wish to make light of the situation, because it is deathly serious, but Elon Musk’s attempted takeover of the United States would be a decent jumping-off point for a story about everyone’s favorite MI6 agent. Imagine James Bond facing off against someone like Musk. You can’t because Bond doesn’t usually have to deal with dweebs.

Some villains Bond has gone toe-to-toe with are slimy and meek. Dominic Greene from 2008’s Quantum of Solace comes to mind. But even he possessed genuine menace. Musk has menace, but only because he often appears strung out, erratic, and immature. There is no reason he should hold the power he does, even from a charisma standpoint. The man has negative rizz. How he convinced people to follow along with his bulls*** is beyond me. But he has, and now other mediocre rich people are letting their freak flag fly.

Take Josef Kleindienst for example. Don’t know who that is? You are not alone. The man is quite hard to research without being bombarded with clearly biased descriptions about his expertise at “innovation” in… real estate. He is an Austrian businessman who, from what I can gather, founded his real estate business in 1985 in his early twenties. I’m just going to take a shot in the dark and say that he (allegedly) had some help in getting started. He’s been developing a $5 billion luxury resort off the coast of Dubai called The Heart of Europe that feels like it should only exist as a to-scale model, which rests on a table that can emerge from the floor at the press of a button.

Seriously, imagine a billionaire (no need to be specific, they all mostly look the same) standing across from a poached egg-eating James Bond as he reveals his luxury resort built on several man-made islands is actually a front for creating a safe haven for the world’s elite, and to ensure they will use it he is going to unleash a plague on the other continents to make them unliveable. He laughs, and Bond beats his mustachioed henchman, sinks the islands with said businessman, and saves the day. That took me all of three minutes to come up with and while silly, it is infinitely more interesting than what Kleindienst is attempting.

The Bond franchise has been in limbo since Daniel Craig’s final appearance almost four years ago in No Time To Die. The character’s hiatus doesn’t seem to be ending anytime soon as rights-holder and producer behind the films, Barbara Broccoli, did not enjoy Amazon referring to the films as “content” (nor should she). While a new adventure is waiting to be made, Kleindienst looks to take advantage of a UK and EU law that would see a trademark revoked if not used in at least five years. What he wants to do with the name James Bond is unknown, but a spokesman for the businessman told the Guardian that he is attempting to claim it. Yay.

Given the inherent lack of creativity found in the ultra-wealthy, I’m sure this would amount to little more than cliched “experiences” at his luxury resort that would find people dropping even more money on a chance to drive an Aston Martin or wear a nice watch. Part of me assumes there could be some espionage-based roleplaying involved. But rich people only want to appear richer. I seriously doubt Kleindienst would allow visitors to roleplay as an agent who takes men like him down, but getting them to drop an extra $50K on a watch/suit combo sounds about right.

Rich dicks buying up the rights to beloved characters for a vanity project seems more plausible than ever. The richest people are getting richer and feeling emboldened by a dufus who is openly pushing the Great Replacement Theory and employing racists while those who could oppose him sit on their hands. This stuff will get worse, and no matter who owns the rights to the fictional character, there is no real James Bond to save us.