Popular British actress beats Zendaya to become top pick for next Bond girl

The bookies are predicting that Zendaya is no longer the favourite to be the next Bond girl whenever Amazon gets round to making their new James Bond movies.

Dune director Denis Villeneuve has been announced as the director, but pretty much everything else about the project is yet to be locked in, including the identities of major cast members.

Speculation over the new 007 has been rife with all sorts of names mentioned, while there have been recent claims that the remit will be for a younger 'British Bond' with the likes of Tom Holland, Jacob Elordi and Harris Dickinson suggested as the most likely prospects.

Other names mentioned include Aaron Taylor-Johnson, so often tipped as the top choice, but you can't just have a James Bond movie with only James Bond in it.

Zendaya is one of the favourites to be the next Bond girl (John Shearer/WireImage)

We can expect to see a new 'Bond girl', the traditional femme fatale who tends to have to accompany Bond on his mission, help him kill people and put her skills to use in some way.

Then of course she and Bond tend to get down and dirty, which will sometimes prompt him to make a bad joke that would under normal circumstances kill the mood a bit.

Once that's done, she might die to make Bond feel sad for a bit, or she usually won't be in the next movie because 007 is the sort of guy who doesn't tend to stick around.

Anyhow, while Zendaya had been suggested as a strong favourite to take this part in the movie, the folks at Gambling.com reckon that the odds-on favourite is actually her Dune co-star Florence Pugh.

Both actors have worked with Denis Villeneuve in the past, which may be seen as a plus for both of their chances of getting the role, as Pugh has odds of 11/8 and Zendaya is slightly behind at 6/4.

Florence Pugh is no stranger to playing a spy (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney)

For those who don't want to do maths it means their chances are rated as similar but Pugh is slightly ahead.

Of course any sort of speculation is just that at this point.

Now the new James Bond movie has a director things might start moving on the project at pace, though Villeneuve is a busy man, and we might start hearing more about who will actually be in the movie.

So many names have been suggested as possible options for various roles so we're all stuck playing a game of wait-and-see until the moment of truth is revealed.

Let's hope the film is worth the wait.