The Bond villain has never quite achieved the status of Bond girl. We mostly remember the girls, even the lousy mis-cast ones (paging Denise Richards!) The villains are sometimes remembered, but they usually fade into obscurity by the next movie. That will definitely be true of the Daniel Craig era’s first villain, Mads Mikkelsen.

Still, someone needs to be the bad guy for Bond. Fox News says the next one will be Frenchie Mathieu Amalric. Amalric is about to play a paralyzed writer in the surreal true story The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. He is probably best known to non-French audiences as Louis, who gets Eric Bana the locations of his targets in Munich.

Nobody has confirmed Amalric’s involvement. Bond 22, as the titleless film is currently called, will reportedly follow closely on the events of Casino Royale. Amalric is sure to be an improvement if he does something more menacing than rig the stockmarket and cry blood.