Idris Elba 'too street' to play James Bond, 007 author says

The bookmakers' favorite to step into Daniel Craig's blood-splattered shoes as the next James Bond isn't suave enough for the role, according to the author of the next 007 novel.

Anthony Horowitz, whose James Bond title Trigger Mortis hits bookshelves Sept.8, has waded into the debate over whether Idris Elba should be the next actor to get a license to kill. Horowitz doesn't think so.

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In an interview with British tabloid The Daily Mail, the author said he thought Elba was "a bit too rough" to play the part, although he asserted that it wasn't "a color issue."

"I think he is probably a bit too street for Bond," he said. "Is it a question of being suave? Yeah."

Horowitz also laid into Skyfall, the last 007 film (from director Sam Mendes) and the most successful to date, which he branded his "least favorite" and the one Bond title he never liked.

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"Bond is weak in it. He has doubts. That's not Bond," Horowitz said. "Secondly, the villain wins. The villain sets out to kill M. The film finishes with the villain killing M. So why have I watched it?"

He also criticized the premise of the film's final explosive chapter, in which Bond takes Judi Dench's spymaster to his ancestral home in order to keep her safe.

"if you have to protect the head of MI6 from a madman, do you take her to a Scottish farmhouse with no weapons? And tell your bad guy where you are, so he will arrive with six people to kill her? It's that sort of thing that made me angry."

Mendes returns with the next Bond film, Spectre, which premieres in the U.K. October 26 and on Nov.6 in the U.S..

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