Does the left have a license to kill James Bond?

Movie franchises come and go, but there’s only one 007.

Sure, several actors have played James Bond through the years, but Hollywood’s oldest franchise still holds sway over the culture.

But not if today’s progressives have anything to say about it.

The left has had the Bond saga in its sights for years. The attacks come from different directions, but they all have something in common. Bond must change to meet modern times ... on our terms.

There’s a kernel of truth here. Sean Connery’s 007, the standard to which all Bond actors must be compared, occasionally treated women in ways we wouldn’t applaud today.

An infamous smack on a female co-star’s rump during “Goldfinger” comes to mind. The character’s classic battles against the Soviet Union also don’t mesh with today’s reality.

Thank you, President Ronald Reagan.

Otherwise, there’s nothing wrong with Bond being Bond: Seducing women. Killing without mercy. Embracing his masculinity. He’s a super spy, not a role model.

We don’t ask Dom Toretto from the “Fast and Furious” films to use his directionals more often. Why must Bond consider the systemic racism that led to a supervillain’s master plan?

The woke left revels in destroying the past, from tearing down statues to shaming audiences for liking “problematic” films of yore like “Gone with the Wind.” That 1939 epic briefly got yanked from the HBO Max platform while the streaming giant mulled ways to reintroduce it to an “evolved” audience.

Bond’s skin color alone is a cause for concern. Progressives demand that Bond be played by a person of color or even a woman to show how much culture has evolved since “Dr. No” hit theaters in 1962. And to tsk-tsk anyone who gets a thrill from Bond’s adventurous id.

It’s called escapism, and it’s still legal in all 50 states.

Whenever it’s time for a changing of the Bond, we get articles suggesting the character flee his biographical origins for something new, fresh, and, dare we say, woke.

The most recent Bond, Daniel Craig, gently dodged the character’s need to remain male by suggesting Hollywood write better parts for women and minorities. Ex-Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, by comparison, went full woke by endorsing a female 007.

“I think we’ve watched the guys do it for the last 40 years. Get out of the way, guys, and put a woman up there. I think it would be exhilarating, it would be exciting,”

The attacks on all things Bond don’t stop there.

Last year, we learned “sensitivity readers” censored Ian Fleming’s 007 novels to make them less problematic to modern readers. That wasn’t enough. The classic tomes also featured trigger warnings attached to new editions.

The latest Bond novel reads like a woke satire. “On His Majesty’s Secret Service” finds our hero battling a Brexiteer, dating an immigration lawyer, and attacking the rise of populism. All that’s missing is the pronouns.

More recently, the British Film Institute added “trigger warnings” to two Bond classics screened to honor composer John Barry.

“[The films] contain language, images or other content that reflect views prevalent in its time, but will cause offence today (as they did then).

“The titles are included here for historical, cultural or aesthetic reasons and these views are in no way endorsed by the BFI or its partners.”

The Bond classic “You Only Live Twice” earned a separate warning, stating the film “contains outdated racial stereotypes.”

Even the term “Bond girls” is now verboten. It’s the “male gaze” on steroids, a throwback to our caveman-like past.

The modern left has wrested control over much of modern culture. Comedians watch what they say, or else. Public schools push porn on young students only to cry, “Book banners!” should parents notice. Don’t even start on what’s happening across academia or Tinseltown.

Yet the Broccoli family, which controls the 007 film series with a tight grip, has mostly ignored the pleas for change.

Yes, Craig’s Bond went the monogamy route in the most recent films, but he still flexed his license to kill without so much as a shrug. Craig’s physicality, that bruised but handsome face, and uncompromising devotion to duty, honored the Connery template.

The marketing push for the last Bond outing, “No Time to Die,” proved more woke than the film itself.

The Bond saga remains a crucial tie to both on-screen masculinity and our shared past. Both pose a threat to the left, which explains the relentless assaults on the super spy.

Bond endures, but for how long?

Barbara Broccoli weighed in on Bond’s immediate future in a troubling chat with the Guardian.

“I think these movies reflect the time they are in, and there’s a big, big road ahead reinventing it for the next chapter, and we haven’t even begun with that.”

Reinventing? Sure. Just like Auric Goldfinger wanted to “reinvent” our hero with that laser beam headed straight for his “toxic masculinity.”

“Do you expect me to change?”

“No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!”