Clint Eastwood’s spy thriller The Eiger Sanction shows he was right to pᴀss on playing James Bond. Clint Eastwood has no obvious links to the James Bond movies, but he was one of many up-and-comers considered to replace Sean Connery after the latter quit the franchise. The Bond series was a pop culture phenomenon by this point, so while Connery’s exit put the saga’s future in jeopardy, producers were confident the character was bigger than the actor. With that in mind, they cast a very wide net regarding potential James Bond actors.

Names that were thrown around include Terence Stamp, Oliver Reed, John Richardson and even future Bond star Timothy Dalton, who was considered too young at the time. Eastwood was a rising star around this period thanks to the Dollars trilogy and movies like Where Eagles Dare, but after campaigning hard for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, George Lazenby won the role. While Eastwood is best known for Westerns and thrillers, 1975’s The Eiger Sanction is one of a handful of spy movies Clint attempted.

Clint Eastwood’s The Eiger Sanction Was His Take On A James Bond Movie

Clint’s spy thriller is propped up by great action

Eastwood’s The Eiger Sanction is based on the novel of the same name, which was designed as a 007 spoof. Eastwood also directed the movie, where he plays a retired ᴀssᴀssin forced to pull off another hit by his old agency. This means he has to pose as a mountain climber and identify a killer hiding within a team ascending the treacherous Eiger mountain. Before Clint signed on, Paul Newman was set to front the thriller.

Having pᴀssed up On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, The Eiger Sanction is the closest to Bond that Eastwood got. It has Eastwood as a suave, charming spy who hops around the globe, takes part in death-defying stunts and is seduced by beautiful women. It even has some outlandish, Bondian characters like Dragon, the albino former Nazi who acts as the boss of Eastwood’s Hemlock.

The Eiger Sanction is an uneasy union of spy parody and straight-faced thriller, and it feels like Eastwood himself largely zones out on the convoluted story. It must be said that the film contains some impressive setpieces, with the film being sH๏τ on location and Eastwood performing much of the climbing stunts himself. The thriller is an interesting curio within Eastwood’s filmography for a few reasons, but it’s still one of his weaker outings from the 1970s.

Clint Eastwood Pᴀssed On Replacing Sean Connery As James Bond

Being offered 007 did not make Clint’s day

In 2010, Eastwood told Hero Complex (via Irish Independent) that he had been offered “pretty good money” to take on James Bond after Connery departed the role. His lawyer at the time also represented Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, who told Clint they would “love” to have him take over. Eastwood had largely made his name with Westerns during this time, so playing a British secret agent who is rarely seen out of a tuxedo would have been a big change of pace. Despite the money on offer, Eastwood wasn’t interested in taking on Bond or being compared to Connery.

But to me, well, that was somebody else’s gig. That’s Sean’s deal. It didn’t feel right for me to be doing it.

It’s odd to think there is an alternate universe where Eastwood sips from a martini glᴀss, squints deeply into the eyes of Diana Rigg and growls menacingly, “The name’s Bond. James Bond.” Great as Eastwood can be, this sounds like a miscasting of the highest order, and it feels like he knew it. He could have taken what sounds like a healthy payday just to do it once, but failing as 007 could not only have impacted his career but also hurt the longevity of the property too.

The Eiger Sanction Proves Eastwood Would Have Made For A Bad 007

The Eiger Sanction proves there was snow way Clint could have been Bond

In the interview book Conversations with Clint: Paul Nelson’s Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood, 1979-1983, Eastwood touches on The Eiger Sanction, with most of his comments revolving around how physically taxing it was. He never sounds all that enthused about the thriller, however, and states it’s not one of his “all-time favorites.” He admits the central romance with Vonetta McGee’s fellow C-2 Agent Jemima Brown was too “cutesy” and that he tried to play the story at a “more serious level” than the source material.

The Eiger Sanction is absolutely a product of its time, being rife with politically incorrect humor. The key issue there is that Clint isn’t a natural comedy director, so many scenes feel uneasy with the tongue-in-cheek nature of the plot. He understands the point of the novel was that it was a comedic Bond riff, but being that he’s not a spy genre fan, he feels uncertain about what tone to hit. The movie may have worked best if Clint had leaned harder into the parody, but that approach would have overwhelmed the intensity of the climbing sequences.

Then there’s just the fact that, as handsome and charming as Clint can be, playing a Bond-like spy just doesn’t fit his persona. Maybe Paul Newman was the better fit for such a character, and while Clint is always watchable, he doesn’t bring the right energy to the part. Eastwood would return to the espionage genre again with 1982’s Firefox, where he tellingly plays more of a stoic, Eastwoodian type of spy.

Several American Actors Came Close To Playing James Bond

“The name’s Bond. Jimmy Bond.”

James Bond author Ian Fleming was very eager for his literary creation to make the leap to the big screen – which turned out to be a long, frustrating process. This also saw Fleming option the rights to the first 007 novel Casino Royale for a measly $1000 for use as an episode of CBS anthology show Climax! This saw American star Barry Nelson (The Shining) become the first actor to play James Bond in live action, or – as he’s called in the episode – Jimmy Bond.

Having an American playing the quintessentially British secret agent felt very off, and is something the series has avoided since; to date, anyway. Regardless, the franchise has considered casting Americans as Bond many times, with Eastwood being far from the first. In fact, American actor John Gavin (Psycho) was all set to play 007 in both Diamonds Are Forever and Live and Let Die; in the case of the former, MGM insisted that Sean Connery come back, and in the latter, it was decided a British actor should play the part, leading to Roger Moore’s casting.

During the 1970s, former Batman Adam West and Burt Reynolds circled the part, only to decide for themselves that Bond should be English. Mel Gibson was in consideration for The Living Daylights, while there was a notion of gender-flipping the character for GoldenEye and having Sharon Stone take over. Maybe the closest an American star has come is James Brolin, who was set to take over from Roger Moore with 1983’s Octopussy; as the film would be competing with Sean Connery’s “unofficial” James Bond adventure Never Say Never Again that same year, it was decided Moore should return.

Source: Hero Complex (via Irish Independent), Conversations with Clint: Paul Nelson’s Lost Interviews with Clint Eastwood, 1979-1983