THE ORB HAS SPOKEN: Bourne Wakes Up With No Memory and the Lead, and GoldenEye Is Left Shaken in the Mist

Draw the curtains, dim the lamps, and keep your voice down, because the walls have ears and the ears have earpieces. A new fight has crawled out of the shadows: Best Spy Movie. The cards are already shuffled, the dead drops are already filled, and before the incense has even burned down, the crowd is picking sides like double agents choosing an embassy.

I turn the first card and it shows a man pulled out of the sea with a bullet in his back and no idea who he is. The crystal ball clouds over and fills with Parisian traffic and a very battered Mini. Yes, darlings: The Bourne Identity leads the early count on Morfi's opinion markets with 26% consensus and 7 holders behind it. It's a 2002 thriller about a man who doesn't remember his own name, and so far it's the one the crowd won't forget.

Close behind, swirling his martini in the mist, comes GoldenEye with 25% consensus and 7 holders. That's the 1995 film that brought Bond back with a tank chase and a satellite weapon. Further back in the smoke wait 2 other sides, each with its own gadgets and grudges. Altogether 15 traders have put $38,535 behind their convictions, and trading opened less than a day ago. The orb is still warm. Nothing here is settled, and every number can still be turned by a well-placed mole.

Now for the prophecy, and I'll admit it's pure opinion soaked in candle wax. I think Bourne leads because he's the spy our nervous age deserves. He has no gadgets, no quips and no tailor, just a ballpoint pen, a rolled-up magazine and a constant feeling that something's wrong. Bond's whole pitch is that a spy can be glamorous. Bourne's is that a spy is a confused man running away from the institution that made him, and the crowd seems to find that one easier to believe. GoldenEye is still a glorious fever dream, and I won't hear a word against that tank. But my cards say elegance is losing to paranoia, at least for tonight.

What to watch? The gap is thin and the market is barely a day old. One wave of Bond loyalists could flip the reading before the next full moon, and any of the challengers in the smoke could still slip in through the air vents. So pick your agent, my dears, and join the market on Morfi. The orb takes all sides, and it reveals nothing until the crowd does.