Ever since Netflix won the bidding rights for Heart of Stone, an original female-led spy thriller starring Gal Gadot, it’s being colloquially described as a gender-swapped Bond movie. The filmmakers themselves have alluded to those comparisons in the past, expressing their intent of creating a new, wholly original franchise from the ground-up. Lead actress Gal Gadot cautions fans though to not expect this to simply be a female Bond movie as it has a lot more to offer than the relentless cliche of action sequences that usually govern a movie of this genre.
In an Empire Magazine exclusive on the movie, Gadot revealed that there’s more to Heart of Stone than slapping the label of a female-driven Bond movie to it.
I don’t want people to come to this movie thinking, ‘This is the female Bond.’ This is a new idea, a new universe. It’s hard to tell these stories without cliché, but we really tried to avoid them.
The desire to create a movie like this was motivated by established, popular franchises in this space such as Mission: Impossible, Jason Bourne and of course the eponymous James Bond movies. Gadot ultimately leaned in towards developing a female-driven action franchise with the realization that there’s an audience for it out there.
After the success of Wonder Woman, I realized that there was an audience for a female action protagonist. I grew up watching Bond, and Mission, and Bourne. I wanted to create a really strong, female-driven action movie that is for everybody, not a male story that’s been done many times already.
With her lead role in Wonder Woman and its sequel Wonder Woman 1984 as well as roles in action movie franchises such as Red Notice and The Fast and the Furious series of films, Gadot certainly seems to have found her niche in being an action movie star. And while all of those movies may not have gone down well with critics and audiences alike, they’ve pulled in decent box office or viewership numbers to keep Gadot relevant. We’ll just have to wait and see how well this one lands with viewers.
Heart of Stone is slated to premiere on Netflix on August 11, 2023. Directed by Tom Harper, the movie stars Gal Gadot as Rachel Stone with Jamie Dornan, Alia Bhatt, Sophie Okonedo, Matthias Schweighöfer, Jing Lusi, Paul Ready, Jon Kortajarena, Matteo Cicconi, and Angela Esposito.
