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Charlie Higson, author of a series of Young Bond novels, is coming out with an adult Bond tale, Ian Fleming Publications announced today.
On His Majesty’s Secret Service is scheduled to be published May 4, two days before the coronation of King Charles III.
The new tale is timeshifted to the present day. Higson’s Young Bond novels were done as period pieces.
On His Majesty’s Secret Service concerns Bond being assigned to prevent the disruption of the coronation by “the wealthy, eccentric and self-styled Athelstan of Wessex,” according to IFP’s announcement.
The story will be available as a hardback, e-book and audiobook read by Higson. Royalties from sales will support the work of the National Literacy Trust, a U.K. charity, IFP said.
Here is IFP’s post on Twitter about the new book.
A new Bond adventure written by @monstroso to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III is coming! On His Majesty’s Secret Service will be published on May 4th, with all royalties going to support the work of @Literacy_Trust
For a mere 60,000 British pounds per person ($74,256), you too can participate in a European tour of James Bond locations.
Here is part of the announcement on the official 007 site of Eon Productions:
Today (March 30), Black Tomato have released details of their limited edition travel experience. ‘The Assignment’ is an immersive journey to signature destinations inspired by the world of James Bond. The United Kingdom, France, Monaco, Italy and Austria are the five countries which feature in the trip.
In addition to stays in world renowned hotels such as London’s Corinthia and Hotel Metropole in Monte Carlo, ‘The Assignment’ features a hand-picked itinerary of Bond experiences created exclusively for this unique journey.
James Bond became BIG in the United States in the early 1960s.
Ian Fleming’s 007 novels had been published since the early 1950s. But Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner began serializing Bond short stories and novels in the early 1960s. And, of course, John F. Kennedy, elected as U.S. president in 1960, made it known he was a 007 fan.
Life magazine published a list of the new president’s favorite books. Most were heavy history and biographies. But one was a popular tale, Fleming’s From Russia, With Love novel.
Hefner and Kennedy provided the literary Bond a huge jolt in the U.S. All of this happened just as the literary Bond was to be adapted to the screen by Eon Productions and United Artists.
That era, perhaps, might be at an end.
These days, continuation novels featuring Fleming’s character don’t show up in the U.S. until months after they’ve been published in the U.K. The most recent example? Double Or Nothing by Kim Sherwood. The most interested U.S. Bond literary fans arranged to have the novel imported.
What’s more, the U.S. box office for the 007 films aren’t what they used they be.
With 2021’s No Time to Die, the 25th James Bond film made by Eon, showed up in the pay-per-view market about a month after the U.S. debut. In the U.S. theatrical market, No Time to Die came in at 007 at $160.8 million, behind The Eternals at $164.6 million, a major disappointment for Walt Disney Co.’s Marvel Studios.
What’s up with Bond 26, the next installment for the Eon series?
Nobody outside of Eon knows. As of this date, there’s no new Bond film actor. There’s no new Bond film director. There’s no new Bond script.
Eventually, you would guess, Bond 26 will take shape. But Bond doesn’t generate the excitement in the U.S. it once did. The U.K. is Bond’s homeland. Both the film and literary franchises care a lot about that.
The U.S.? It doesn’t seem so much.
JFK died 60 years ago this November. Hefner? He left the scene in September 2017.
We will see if Bond again generates the kind of excitement he once did in the U.S.
A decade ago, the blog examined how Marvel (the corporate model of filmmaking) compared with Eon Productions (the family model).
In its early years, Marvel actually adapted Eon’s model. Early Marvel films kept costs in line. It was similar to how Eon co-founder Albert R. Broccoli would be willing to pay big for a Bond actor but supporting actors got relatively small pay. The likes of Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell, and Desmond Llewelyn received modest wages.
As Marvel became a big success, budgets expanded. A cost of $200 million or more became common. But, hey, when $1 billion global box office figures were regular occurrences, that can happen. Marvel chief Kevin Feige became a big name in Hollywood.
Marvel’s box office climaxed with 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, with almost $2.8 billion in global box office.
Since then, Marvel hasn’t come close to those levels. But Marvel’s movie costs have stayed expensive. In addition, Marvel has made television series for the Disney + streaming series.
From the outside, it seems Marvel management, including Feige, is stretched thin. Earlier this month, one of Marvel’s top-ranking executives, Victoria Alonso, abruptly left the company.
Walt Disney Co. acquired 20th Century Fox a few years ago. That means that Marvel now has control of the X-Men and Fantastic Four, characters created in the 1960s by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. But Marvel has yet to show what it can do with those characters. (An alterative universe version of the Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards was murdered in 2022’s Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.)
It is possible the eyes of Marvel executives are bigger than their stomachs? Very possible. Marvel may be in need of a big mid-course correction.
Poster for Avengers: Endgame (2019), the high point for Marvel Studios
Four years after Marvel Studios had a huge hit with Avengers: Endgame, the unit of Walt Disney Co. is having a tough time.
Marvel hasn’t come close to Endgame-level box office (almost $2.8 billion) with subsequent movies. The studio has reached deep into the Marvel catalog of characters for movies such as Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings ($432.2 million), The Eternals ($402.1 million), and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (currently at about $462 million).
Such movies haven’t generated Avengers-level box office while incurring Avengers-level costs. Marvel’s biggest recent success was Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), with $1.9 billion at the box office. But Spider-Man movies are joint ventures between Marvel and Sony Pictures. The latter owns the rights to Spider-Man with Marvel producing the films.
Marvel also has been making television shows for the Disney + streaming service. So the attention of Marvel management is a bit stretched these days.
Today, The Hollywood Reporter said that a high-ranking Marvel executive, Victoria Alonso, has left Marvel. She had been with Marvel since 2006. With recent Marvel films, she’s had the title of executive producer. With movies, executive producer ranks below producer, the title Marvel chief Kevin Feige has in the credits for Marvel films.
Alonso also received attention when she once said that the name X-Men was “outdated” because the superhero group included women members. X-Men is one of Marvel’s most valuable pieces of “intellectual property.” The group of mutant superheroes has always had women members since its 1963 debut. Disney got control of the X-Men after it acquired 20th Century Fox, which held the rights to the comic book property.
It remains to be seen what happens next. There is a lot of talk about superhero fatigue at the cinema. Marvel rival Warner Bros. is revamping, again, its lineup of superhero films. Warner Bros. hired James Gunn, who worked on Marvel films in the past, to be co-chief of its DC Comics efforts.
At the very least, Marvel’s Feige probably shouldn’t expect that Thalberg award (for lifetime achievement by a producer) anytime soon
Cover to the Signet U.S. paperback edition of The Spy Who Loved Me (1962)
Five years ago, the blog published a post that described The Man With the Golden Gun, Ian Fleming’s final novel, as “the runt of the litter” for Fleming’s original tales.
But, for many Fleming fans, The Spy Who Loved Me is really the runt of the litter.
It’s a very unusual novel. Fleming, in his 50s at the time, wrote a first-person story from the perspective of a woman in her 20s.
Context: Fleming had been writing Bond novels for roughly a decade when The Spy Who Loved Me was published
The author took a major detour from his previous Bond tales. The novel is told in the first person. Fleming’s previous novels and short stories were told in the third person.
What’s different: The novel is told from the perspective of Viv Michael, a Canadian, who has endured affairs that didn’t work out. She decided to emigrate to North America. She has planned out a long trip she intends to make by motor scooter.
The first two-thirds of the novel concerns Viv’s love affairs in Europe. Afterward, she opts to emigrate to North America. She ends up in northern New York State. Viv gets hired for a couple of weeks to mind the operations at a motel in the region. But all is not what it is what it seems to be.
Climax: Viv is about to get killed by Horror and Sluggsy, two hoods, just before Bond arrives. The agent is driving from Toronto to Washington, D.C., after a mission involving SPECTRE.
More context: Fleming practically disowned this story. Supposedly, when Fleming did his deal with Danjaq/Eon, the filmmakers could only use the title.
Still more context: One chapter consists of Bond telling Viv what he was up to in Canada. If (and Danjaq/Eon has said this will never happen) there were a Bond streaming TV series, that would make for a great episode.
Conclusion: Fleming was really in experimental mode. At one point, “All women love semi-rape,” Viv says in Chapter 14 (“Bimbo”). That was likely cringe-worthy in 1962, when the novel was published.
At the same time, Fleming deserves a tip of the cap for going so far out from his earlier efforts.
This was his last effort before On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, his biggest epic. Whatever you feel about Fleming, he wasn’t afraid to change directions.
Over the past week, some of the actresses of the 1960s spy craze celebrated notable birthdays.
Barbara Feldon (b. 1933): She is best known for co-starring in Get Smart (1965-70). Agent 99 was, well, smarter than CONTROL’s Maxwell Smart (Don Adams). But she loved the guy and eventually, 99 and Max got married. Feldon has had a long career.
The TV season before Get Smart, Feldon was a guest star on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in The Never-Never Affair. Feldon played an U.N.C.L.E. employee who yearned for adventure. The episode, written by Dean Hargrove, was one of the best episodes of the 1964-68 series.
Nancy Kovack (b. 1935): The actress appeared on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (two episodes, different characters), The Silencers, Batman, Get Smart, The Secret Life of Henry Phyffe (a situation comedy with Red Buttons who looks identically alike to a recently deceased spy), Hawaii Five-O, and The FBI (including one episode where her character was part of a spy ring).
Leslie Parrish (b. 1935): She played the doomed girlfriend in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) as well as characters in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Wild Wild West.series, including the first Dr. Loveless story.
Ian Fleming Publications unveiled a “new look” for Fleming’s Bond books and other works.
The announcement came shortly after IFP said it was scrubbing offensive bits from the author’s James Bond novels. That move stirred controversy about being “woke” and censorship.
Besides Fleming’s James Bond works, IFP unveiled new covers for The Diamond Smugglers and Thrilling Cities.
Footnote: Thrilling Cities caused Ian Fleming to (briefly) become involved with The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Fleming would co-create the character of Napoleon Solo before abandoning the project under pressure from Bond producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman.
IFP has mostly ignored Fleming’s involvement with the TV project. Fleming sold his interest in U.N.C.L.E. for 1 British pound. IFP gets no money from U.N.C.L.E. as a result.
Nature abhors a vacuum. With that in mind, here are some modest questions concerning Bond 26.
Time to lighten up? Over the past five Bond films made by Eon Productions there has been a lot of angst.
Bond losing his lady love (Casino Royale, based on Ian Fleming’s first novel). Bond out for revenge (Quantum of Solace). Bond not able to save M (Skyfall). Bond discovers his foster brother was his greatest enemy (SPECTRE). Bond getting blown up with missiles (No Time to Die).
The Daniel Craig era of Bond films (which started over from the previous 20 movies) was often very serious. That era was a big difference from the mostly escapist Eon adventures that preceded it. Should the past be the future?
Could it be time to lighten things up?
Time to reduce the budget? The Bond film series has a history of hiking production budgets and bringing them back under control.
With SPECTRE and No Time to Die, the production budgets exploded. U.K. regulatory filings in 2020 suggested No Time to Die’s budget was nearing $300 million. That doesn’t include marketing costs. Is this sustainable? Sure, delays related COVID-19 were a factor. But the film industry has, more or less, adjusted to all that.
Time to let go of the homages to past Bond movies? Quantum of Solace, SPECTRE, and No Time to Die all had homages (critics would say crutches) to previous Bond films.
No Time to Die alone had multiples homages to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. At one point, Bond is meeting with M in London with John Barry’s theme from Majesty’s plays in the background. There are multiple references to the John Barry-Hal David song We Have All the Time in the World. And, of course, we get the Aston DB5 (in the form of newly built replica cars).
The Washington Post, in an article about what movies should have won the Best Picture Oscar, says Skyfall should have received the award for 2012.
The story originally was published in 2016 but has been updated because of the Oscars ceremony scheduled for March 12.
Here’s the article’s entry for 2012:
Go big or go home. Listen, this was a tough year: “Argo” was delightful, but Spielberg was working at a much higher level of difficulty by making the weighty themes of “Lincoln” so human and relatable. But that’s beside the point: The academy had one chance to give a Bond movie the Oscar, and it was with the confident, thrilling, psyche-probing “Skyfall.” Bond may be the best franchise of all times, but its individual films rarely connect on all levels like this one did.
Skyfall wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture. The nominees were Amour, Argo, Beasts of the Southern Wild, Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty. Argo ended up winning.
Skyfall received five nominations. It won two, Best Song (the film’s title song) and it shared a sound award with Zero Dark Thirty. The results snapped a long Oscar drought for the Bond film series. Bond had previously won for special effects for Thunderball.
Still, there was disappointment among Bond fans. Roger Deakins had been nominated for Skyfall’s cinematography but didn’t win. (He would later win for Blade Runner 2049 and 1917.) And the film wasn’t nominated for acting, directing, or writing.
Since Skyfall, the Bond series has won two more Best Song Oscars for SPECTRE and No Time to Die.
The Spy Command 