Halle Berry claims studio balked at ‘ahead of its time’ James Bond spin-off based on Jinx character

Halle Berry has claimed that studios were too scared to support a James Bond spin-off based on her character Jinx.

The Oscar-winning actress played NSA agent Jinx Johnson in the 2002 007 film Die Another Day, which starred Pierce Brosnan, 67. as the British spy.

Producer Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson lobbied for the character to get her own movie, although MGM were put off by an $80 million price tag, a decision Halle branded as ‘disappointing’ in a cover interview with Variety.

In the interview, she said: ‘It was very disappointing.

‘It was ahead of its time. Nobody was ready to sink that kind of money into a black female action star. They just weren’t sure of its value. That’s where we were then.’

The Ohio native instead took on the title role of Catwoman in the 2004 superhero film after winning the Academy Award for Best Actress for her work in the 2001 romantic drama Monster’s Ball.

‘People said to me, ”You can’t do that. You’ve just won the Oscar”,’ Berry said. ‘Because I didn’t do Jinx, I thought, ”This is a great chance for a woman of color to be a superhero. Why wouldn’t I try this?”’   

Berry said the ‘story didn’t feel quite right’ with its shaky plot involving a conspiracy behind a dangerous cosmetics product.   

‘I remember having that argument: ”Why can’t Catwoman save the world like Batman and Superman do? Why is she just saving women from a face cream that cracks their face off?” But I was just the actor for hire. I wasn’t the director. I had very little say over that,’ she said.

Catwoman was widely panned and is considered one of the worst films of all-time. 

Halle also opened up about becoming the first black woman to win the Best Actress Oscar for her role in Monster’s Ball. She remains the only black female to land the top accolade and admits she ‘doesn’t have the answer’ about why other black actresses haven’t had the same Oscar success.

She explained: ‘It’s one of my biggest heartbreaks. The morning after, I thought, ‘Wow, I was chosen to open a door’.

‘And then, to have no one … I question, ‘Was that an important moment, or was it just important for me?’

‘I wanted to believe it was so much bigger than me. It felt so much bigger than me, mainly because I knew others should have been there before me and they weren’t.’

Berry thought that her Oscar win would open doors for her in the movie industry but felt things actually became ‘harder’.

She said: ‘Just because I won an award doesn’t mean that, magically, the next day, there was a place for me. I was just continuing to forge a way out of no way.

‘I think it’s largely because there was no place for someone like me. It actually got a little harder. They call it the Oscar curse. You’re expected to turn in award-worthy performances.’