Handing Amazon – creators of the appalling Lord of the Rings prequel series The Rings of Power – creative control of the James Bond franchise is a little like sending a telegram down to the wreck of the Titanic to ask Captain Smith if he’d like a “second crack at the old ocean-liner gig”, says Madeline Grant in The Spectator. But if Jeff Bezos and co want to get it right, I’ve got a few ideas. First: the films have become embarrassingly serious. “Is this it?” says Bond in Skyfall, bemoaning his lack of fun gadgetry. “What did you expect?” replies Q. “An exploding pen?” Well yes, actually. Spectre smugly named its heroine Madeleine Swann, a ghastly double Proust reference. Sure, Bond girls can’t all be called “Ivana Humpalot”, but there’s a middle ground: a return to fun, camp enjoyment and a sense of humour. “Perhaps even – God forbid – a bit of shagging.”

Many modern Hollywood instincts should be ignored. The glut of superhero movies means actors are now expected to be “unfeasibly jacked”. Sean Connery was a professional bodybuilder before his Bond outing – by today’s standards he’d barely be considered muscly. We don’t want 007 looking like he’s “one steroid injection away from his heart exploding”, especially when good food is such a staple of Ian Fleming’s books. I yearn for a Bond who looks like he might occasionally enjoy a proper lunch – “four courses plus savoury at Boodle’s” – rather than a diet of protein shakes. Finally, the films should return to actual geopolitics. Today’s villains are no longer KGB assassins and dodgy media moguls, but nebulous figures of unspecified nationality and intent. Come off it. “If you can’t have Russian baddies now, when can you?”

🎬♻️ Under UK copyright law, in 2035 the Bond books will start slipping into the public domain, says The Economist. “New interpretations will surely follow.” Anything specific to the films – the gun-barrel opening sequence, the theme tune – will remain locked up for a while longer, but it’s the novels that contain the core material. The novel Casino Royale features M, Q, and vodka martinis, shaken not stirred. “Everything, in other words, that makes a Bond film a Bond film.”

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