There actually is just such a petition on change.org, started by Gabriel Nir (a Swedish resident) and here is a link to it: https://chng.it/wwVkJLCkdF
But this article is not just intended to be an advert for Mr Nir's petition, although there's no harm done if it fulfills that role. The thing is, it is rare for anyone who actually knows their stuff to feature in a Hollywood movie, and when they do, they are often subservient to someone who either doesn't care about getting technical details right, or who is deliberately trying to rewrite them in furtherance of some kind of personal agenda.
Movies are made by people who mainly know how to make movies, but those people are controlled by people (executives) who know the people who are putting up the money (often in the form of investments entrusted to them by others). So that's at least three conflicting layers of opinion and personal agenda between the hapless expert who knows there were no Spitfires at Pearl Harbour and what actually happens in the movie.
When it comes to acting roles, what the producers are looking for is someone who can project the director's vision of the role. The best actors manage to put something of their own vision into each performance, but they are treading a fine line and if they do it too much, or too well, they may find further work hard to come by. In the main, and especially in the American film industry, they are not looking for anyone who has their own strong ideas on how things should look or whether they make sense; that's not the actor's place, but the director's. And the director actually knows who else he has to be obedient to, the actor may not.
The only known James Bond candidate who might have successfully carried out a Bond-style sabotage mission in real life was Lewis Collins and it is widely believed that he came across as "too tough" in the audition. (It's worth pointing out that Jimmy Hendrix had equivalent paratrooper training to Lewis Collins: he would presumably have failed the test by being "much too cool"!)
A cameo is one way of smuggling a real expert past all these barriers, but in the American film-making system they are reserved either for people outside the Hollywood bubble who are sufficiently famous to sell cinema tickets, or as a form of pension supplement for fading Hollywood figures. In the former case, the famous person has to be politically onside with all the figures in the decision-making process and not pose a threat to the creativity of any of the professionals in the production, either. Ian McCollum does have a very high public recognition factor (and globally), but he is probably too expert for Hollywood to let through the door. So, whilst I support the petition for all the reasons Mr Nir had in mind when he created it, as long as the John Wick franchise remains the American hero platform it is designed to be, I doubt that Mr McCollum will ever get his cameo.
In the British film industry, things are not quite the same. A significantly lower percentage of the professionals and decision-makers have their heads completely up their own arse and there's a long tradition of film-makers, such as Humphrey Jennings and even Bill Owen roping in local people to play local roles. The British film industry rarely creates on an expensive film-stage, anything that exists as a usable location in real life, too. Precisely because they lack American budgets, British producers may not hesitate to use the real thing if it's cheaper than the elaborate fake which fits in exactly with their "vision." One example of this is the 1963 film "The Iron Maiden" where many of the locations are the actual places described in the script and the Duke of Bedford was played by the Duke of Bedford, owner of most of those locations. The advanced airliner in the story got played by a (brand new) Victor Bomber, which was the most aerodynamically-sophisticated large airframe around at the time (the equivalent of the Pentagon lending a film-maker a real B21 in 2022). The whole thing was probably made for less than Hollywood would spend developing a B-movie script.
Even big-budget films like the Bond movies are open to outside ideas: "Little Nellie" the auto-gyro appeared in "You Only Live Twice" at the suggestion of viewers of the BBC technology programme "Tomorrow's World" and its presenter, Raymond Baxter. The trouble there is that Bond films are not made on the same sort of conveyor-belt as the John Wicke franchise and the opportunities to play a role are less frequent.
But the number of films being made in the UK is actually high and growing; big new studios are being built all over the place (mainly because there are enough people already trained or willing to train for the many different technical jobs rather than everyone wanting to be a star). Hollywood seems to be trading on its past a bit; it is certainly not loved as it once was and it may be fading away into Bollywood-style mass production of generic films, except that nobody in Hollywood knows how to stick to a budget. If Mr McCollum actually wants and seeks cameos or technical consultancies in the film world, he stands a much better chance of getting started in the U.K. industry (he is a frequent visitor) than in America.
And the key to going anywhere is getting started!
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