When the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies was released in 1997, it was met with a lukewarm critical reception. Aside from general critiques about the film’s plot, there was a recurring sentiment that Jonathan Pryce’s Carver, a wealthy media mogul, was simply ridiculous as a villain. His scheme of sparking a war to boost his ratings and secure broadcasting rights in China was seen as far-fetched and not believable. His monologues about how the media controlled reality and information was the true weapon of the post Cold War era were seen as beyond the realm of possibility.
However, Carver has enjoyed something of a rehabilitation lately. If you go to clips of him explaining his evil plan on YouTube today, the comment sections are filled with people saying Tomorrow Never Dies was ahead of its time and seems eerily prescient in the modern day.
The Shift From the Evil Billionaire to the Super Rich Super Genius
For years, the billionaire supervillain seemed like a relic. The rise of Silicon Valley reshaped the cultural image of the ultra-wealthy technocrat, turning the eccentric genius into a hero figure. The tech billionaire was a visionary founder who could change the world if everyone else would just get out of the way.
The clearest example of this shift can be found in the MCU’s treatment of Tony Stark. He is, in his own words, a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. He has a sincere change of heart after being captured by terrorists and stops selling weapons, instead dedicating himself, his fortune, and his company to making the world a better place.
As he quipped in Iron Man 2, he successfully privatized world peace. He acts when the government is too corrupt or incompetent to, he protects his inventions from being used by the United States military, preferring instead to use his own discretion and judgement about if force is needed.
And all of this was framed positively. He was a hero for keeping an arsenal that could potentially topple governments to himself and out of the hands of the military. His enemies were the other side of the coin. Also titans of industry, or genius inventors, but who lacked the morals to use their wealth for good. In a sense, the moral of the Iron Man movies was “The only way to stop a bad guy with a private army is a good guy with a private army.”
And, when Tony has another change of heart in Civil War, agreeing that perhaps the Avengers should answer to some sort of government body instead of being global vigilantes, he’s framed as being in the wrong by the very fact that he is opposing Captain America. The latter is, almost by definition, on the right side of any conflict.
Lately, however, that has started to change.
The Evil Billionaire Is Back, and That’s How They Should Be Portrayed
Lex Luthor’s portrayals in Superman films have had their struggles, to say the least. Gene Hackman’s Luthor was on the wackier side, Jesse Eisenberg’s Luthor was a caricature of his Social Network performance and too exaggerated to be effective social commentary, and Kevin Spacey’s Luthor is probably best forgotten.
It wasn’t until Nicholas Hoult’s Luthor in James Gunn’s Superman that the character was convincingly portrayed in a big budget blockbuster film. It was a perfect storm that allowed this. First, there’s the script and the story of the film itself. There is only so much that can be done with a character when the foundation is lacking. Second was the performance. Hoult nailed the aloof, petty arrogance of the visionary multi-billionaire that made him a staple in comics for over 80 years. Lastly is that it reflects our current cultural moment.
The opinion of the ultra-wealthy has undergone a sharp decline in the past few years as economic conditions have worsened for much of the population. Meanwhile, the fortunes of those at the top have continued to grow. Rather than visionaries who can save the world when governments can’t, they are more likely to be seen now as obstacles to progress and impediments to the actions that need to be taken to save the world.
Elon Musk used to be called the real life Tony Stark. Nobody calls him that now.
The Billionaire Comes Full Circle in the Bond Franchise and Beyond
That’s the subtext in Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery where Edward Norton’s “visionary” character is revealed to be nothing more than a lucky moron who managed to convince everyone else of his brilliance. Of course, that film isn’t really subtle with the fact that it’s lambasting people like Musk so it can just be called text at this point.
Editor’s Note: There are spoilers ahead for the James Bond game 007: First Light. Proceed with caution!
Bringing James Bond back into the conversation, this shift has not quite been seen in the Bond films, but the most recent Bond game has this cultural shift embedded in its DNA. 007: First Light follows a young James Bond as he earns his number in the newly revived double zero program. MI6 abandoned the program years ago when the quantum supercomputer THEIA came online, provided by genius industrialist Nicholas Webb. THEIA was touted as never being wrong, its conclusions perfect. However, as the game progresses, it becomes clear that THEIA is not as accurate as Webb pretends that it is.
THEIA makes mistakes, and when it does, Webb sends out a cleanup crew to change reality to fit THEIA’s conclusion. In a typical Bond villain speech, he says that AI, like any human, needs to learn. And the way to learn is by doing. So, he rationalizes, even if there are mistakes in the near term, the lives saved in the long term will more than make up for it.
Of course, when his scheme unravels and he is confronted with the consequences of his own actions, all the high minded idealism goes out the window. He immediately uses the insider knowledge he has to force a pardon from the government and engineer a coup to put a more reliable prime minister in charge for good measure.
The parallels between Webb and Carver are striking. Both men attempt to shape reality itself to the version that best benefits them. And that is the throughline for all of these billionaire villains. They have the power and influence to reshape the world in whatever way they want to, and they choose to use that power for personal gain. This is even seen in Superman with Lex Luthor’s extra-dimensional army of monkeys writing troll posts and riling up anger against Superman as well as in Glass Onion.
In a sense, the role of the billionaire in fiction never changed, it was just how it was framed that was different over time. The billionaire has always been a force that can mold the world to their vision. For a brief window, that power was viewed with hope instead of fear. It reflected a cultural era where the emphasis was placed on personal choice and responsibility over viewing problems and solutions through a systemic lens.
As faith in that philosophy continues to erode in the western world we will continue to see this shift in the portrayal of the ultra-wealthy. And, crucially, the public will not view these portrayals as crude caricatures but as true embodiments of the fears and anxieties of the modern world.