Alfonso Cuarón, Joe Wright, Matthew Vaughn, Guy Ritchie — at one time or another, all dreamed of directing a Bond movie. And they all, for one reason or another, never got the chance.

Denis Villeneuve, the 58-year-old French-Canadian auteur, will be helming the 26th Bond film, the first since producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson sold the franchise to Amazon for $1 billion.

Is Villeneuve, a director known for art films par excellence, the best man for the job?

He’s been defending his choice, saying: “I grew up watching James Bond films with my father. I’m a die-hard Bond fan. To me, he’s sacred territory. I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come.”

Villeneuve has experience rebooting ancient IP, usually by stretching cult classics into sprawling, brooding epics, which some critics (like me) find boring and pretentious.

Before he turned Dune into a two-part sand opera filled with billowing cloaks and endless beige vistas, he brought Blade Runner back with a 2017 sequel that was not particularly exhilarating and thus divided critics.

Some movie-goers (older ones) love that sort of slow, meditative filmmaking, some (younger viewers) not so much.

The best Bond films have always been cinematic feasts filled with exotic locales, gorgeous femme fatales (Bond girls in bikinis) and extended and thrilling globe-trotting action sequences.

That absence of levity could prove fatal. The franchise’s DNA was coiled around action and comedy from the start. Before he started making Bond movies, Barbara Broccoli’s father cut his teeth on heroic B-grade war flicks, while his producing partner, Harry Saltzman, began his career by making circus pictures and goofy comedies.

When the formula strays too far in one direction, things get weird. Daniel Craig’s Bond was too gloomy; he approached the role too seriously, as an actor, not as a movie star.

Roger Moore, on the other hand, literally turned Bond into a clown, a lazy fat cat, full makeup, red nose, oversized shoes — in 1983’s Octopussy.

A certain amount of wit and winking is critical to the character. Without it, Bond loses his body and soul.

Another potential red flag: Villeneuve is used to getting the final cut, which no director has ever been granted in a Bond movie. Back when the Broccolis were running the show, they lorded over every element of the process, from casting to script development to marketing. There’s no reason to believe that Amy Pascal and David Heyman, the producers Amazon has hired to replace them, will be any more hands off.

That kind of micromanagement is what drove many top-tier directors away from Bond in the past (in Danny Boyle’s case, drove him off the actual set of No Time to Die).

Sam Mendes managed to survive Skyfall and Spectre, but most Bond films are NOT made by auteurs. They’re shot by reliable craftsmen like John Glen, Guy Hamilton, and Martin Campbell — workhorse directors who know how to shoot a fight scene, a chase sequence.

It remains to be seen if Villeneuve can handle that sort of collaboration.