The British screenwriter Steven Knight has reportedly been tapped to write the next James Bond movie.
According to Deadline, Knight recently met the director Denis Villeneuve and landed the job after various other writers were also considered. Villeneuve is currently filming the third Dune instalment.
The 65-year-old writer is best known for co-creating the long-running gameshow Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and creating the hit crime series Peaky Blinders. His other small-screen credits include Taboo, A Thousand Blows and The Veil starring Elisabeth Moss.
On the big screen, Knight was written the scripts for the acclaimed dramas Eastern Promises, Dirty Pretty Things, Locke and Spencer. He also wrote and directed the sci-fi thriller Serenity starring Matthew McConaughey, which received negative reviews. The Guardian’s Charles Bramesco called it “magnificently terrible”.
His upcoming credits include the Peaky Blinders movie The Immortal Man and period drama series House of Guinness for Netflix.
When talking about The Immortal Man in 2023, Knight name-checked 007. “The biggest difference between a film and TV series is the budget,” he said to the Mirror. “When you do stuff for TV, you often have to ask people to imagine it. But with a film, you can really do it. You can blow stuff up. Will Tommy be giving James Bond a run for his money? Maybe. There are parallels. We always thought of Peaky as very cinematic, so we are finally finding a screen big enough for what we want to do.”
While the role of James Bond remains up in the air, a June report claimed that Tom Holland, Harris Dickinson and Jacob Elordi were top of the wishlist. The news came just after the Dune and Arrival director Villeneuve was officially attached. “I intend to honour the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come,” he said in a statement. “This is a massive responsibility, but also, incredibly exciting for me and a huge honour.”
The 26th Bond film will follow Daniel Craig’s final outing, No Time to Die, which made over $774m at the global box office. Earlier this year, in a reported $1bn deal, Amazon MGM bought the rights to gain “creative control” of the franchise.
This week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy mentioned the film during a Q3 earnings call. “James Bond is in the hands of one of today’s greatest film-makers,”he said. “We cannot wait to get started on 007’s next adventure.”