James Bond author Charlie Higson has revealed the small-screen 007 project he’d like to see – a faithful adaptation of Ian Fleming’s original novels, set in their 1950s timeline.
The future of the Bond franchise is currently taking shape under Amazon MGM Studios, with Denis Villeneuve directing the next film, Steven Knight writing the screenplay and the search for Daniel Craig’s successor now under way.
But beyond Bond’s return to cinemas, there has inevitably been speculation around whether 007 could eventually expand further on screen – including into television.
Speaking exclusively to Radio Times, Higson said: “Everybody assumed that’s what they were going to do, and that’s why they spent so much money on it and wanted to get it all in-house, because they wanted to do a sort of Bond universe, like the Marvel universe, the Star Wars universe, whatever.
“People have so far been a little bit nonplussed that they haven’t announced anything else like that, and as far as I know, they haven’t got any other plans to do it.”
Higson stressed that he was speculating about Amazon MGM’s strategy, suggesting its immediate attention is likely to remain on relaunching Bond on the big screen.
“I can only assume that they’re concentrating at the moment on the film,” he said. “They’re waiting to see how that does, how that works, what the response to it is, what the algorithms say about it, and based on that they will then do who knows what to expand it.”
The prospect of an interconnected ‘Bond universe’ is likely to divide 007 fans, Higson acknowledged – but he believes there are ways of expanding the franchise that could offer something genuinely different from the films.
“A lot of people think, ‘Oh God, we don’t really want a Bond universe, a spin-off of absolutely everything,’ but a lot of other people think, well, there are opportunities here to do interesting things.”
And rather than a series built around M, Q, Miss Moneypenny or another supporting character, Higson has a very different idea: return to Fleming’s original books and adapt them for television in period.
“One thing I’ve always thought might be fun would be to go back and remake the original Fleming novels, but do them set in the original timeline of the ’50s, and try and be fairly faithful to the books, and do that as a TV thing, so that it’s a very separate thing to the film universe.”
Such a project would offer a markedly different approach to Higson’s own current work with the literary Bond.
His new novel, King Zero, brings 007 firmly into the present day, opening with the murder of a British agent in Saudi Arabia and following Bond as he uncovers a conspiracy stretching far beyond the desert – with the threat of a global catastrophe looming and a mysterious, immensely powerful new adversary operating in the shadows.
The novel is Higson’s first full-length adult Bond adventure, following his Young Bond series and 2023 novella On His Majesty’s Secret Service, and deliberately imagines how a character created by Fleming in the 1950s operates in the modern world.
Bond has, of course, crossed paths with television before – the very first screen adaptation of Fleming’s work was a 1954 CBS version of Casino Royale, broadcast as part of anthology series Climax! and starring Barry Nelson as an Americanised version of 007.
Since then, the franchise has made occasional returns to the small screen – including 1991 animated spin-off James Bond Jr. and, more recently, Prime Video competition series 007: Road to a Million, which launched in 2023 and ran for two seasons.
But a full live-action television drama centred on Bond himself remains largely unexplored territory – leaving Higson’s idea of taking 007 back to Fleming’s original 1950s world an intriguing possibility.
King Zero by Charlie Higson is available to buy now.
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