The next 007

I felt sad when, in early 2025, I read the news announcing that the rights to the James Bond movie franchise had been acquired by Amazon. It will be the end of James Bond, I thought. Americanizing future films will turn them into clones of either Mission Impossible or Bourne, or a combination of both. Not that the MI and Bourne movies were bad spy-action films. They’re quite enjoyable, actually (MI despite Tom Cruise), but not in the James Bond sense.

James Bond

When casting rumors began to circulate, I wondered if the next James Bond would be played by an American actor. If HBO could cast John Lithgow as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter TV series, what could stop Amazon from casting an American actor for the much coveted James Bond role? That would be tragic, I think, but then again, I don’t own the franchise and my opinion does not really count.

When names started to surface, it looked like Bond will stay British. Thank goodness. When Tom Hiddleston did The Night Manager, I felt it was some sort of audition. But I was rooting for Richard Madden who played Rob Stark in the Game of Thrones series. Especially after watching Bodyguard and Citadel, I thought he would be perfect. But it seems he wasn’t really in the running, and neither was Hiddleston.

The latest news has trimmed the list of contenders to three: Callum Turner, Josh O’Connor and Jack Lowden. Until the names of Robert Pattinson and Nicholas Hoult got thrown in. But rumors are rumors, and until an official announcement is made, James Bond remains faceless.

Plot

Will the next James Bond film be a re-adaptation of Ian Fleming’s work or will it have an originaly screenplay?

All of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels have been made into movies. Even some of his short stories, in fact — Octopussy, The Living Daylights, From a View to a Kill, For Your Eyes Only and Quantum of Solace. In the case of Quantum of Solace, only the title was used — the screenplay was totally different from Fleming’s story.

Among his novels, Casino Royale has the distinction of having been adapted for the screen three times — a live Americanized TV production (1955), a bad big screen comedy (1967) and the reboot that began what I can only describe as the humanization of James Bond (2006).

Some James Bond films were not based on any of Ian Fleming’s work at all. All films where Pierce Brosnan played the iconic spy had original stories — Goldeneye, The World is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies and Die Another Day. Among those that starred Daniel Craig, three — Skyfall, Spectre and No Time to Die — had original stories too.

Whether the next James Bond film will be based on a Ian Fleming story or not is, of course, anyone’s guess at this point.