Thomas Crown foreplay

I wonder if Michael B Jordan is trolling a bit this week, or maybe flexing, or maybe a bit of both… because with all this speculation about who might be the next 007, he’s just dropped a new trailer for his movie, The Thomas Crown Affair, that’s definitely giving Bond, if James Bond was a billionaire art thief.

Aside from that character difference, the elements are all here: Thomas Crown struts around in well-tailored clothes, sometimes in sunglasses and exotic locations, runs and chases and scales buildings, exchanges quips with a beautiful woman in a little black dress (very Bond girl), and always seems to be ahead of every curve in the road. If MBJ were British, wouldn’t he be the automatic new Bond?

Coincidentally MBJ’s Thomas Crown, which he also directs, is also an Amazon MGM title, due out in March, right before he’ll show up to the Oscars as the reigning Best Actor winner (and presumably current box office king since this movie is expected to open strong) to present, as is tradition. It’s almost as if someone, and I’m not saying it’s MBJ, is releasing this trailer as if to say, you can all talk about who should be Bond all you want, but can the new Bond step to Michael B Jordan as Thomas Crown?

As Sarah wrote back in the summer about the teaser for The Thomas Crown Affair, “sex appeal is baked into the roots” of this movie. It’s not just a heist film, it’s a cat-and-mouse romance, the whole point is that Thomas Crown is pursuing and being pursued by his love interest. The fact that she sees him as a suspect and as a lover is part of the attraction – it’s a natural point of tension between them, and tension of course can enhance foreplay; for these two, this is what amplifies their attraction. Every line is double entendre, they are talking about the case of the missing art but they’re also talking about wanting to f-ck each other. That was what made the previous Thomas Crowns so good and it’s also what made Out of Sight, with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, so good. Clearly MBJ understands this, while of course adding an element of cultural justice to the formula. It’s a meditation on colonial theft…without compromising the horny.