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007 creator on the big screen
13/10/2005 12:14 - (SA)
Los Angeles - As speculation swirls over who will take over the James Bond role, a top Hollywood studio announced it is making a movie about the suave super-spy's creator, author Ian Fleming.
Warner Bros studios is taking aim at the famed British author just as rival Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer prepares to launch production on the 21st Bond movie Casino Royale in January, the entertainment industry press said on Wednesday.
Warner has given the greenlight for a biographical movie titled Fleming to be scripted by Damian Stevenson and produced by Andrew Lazar, Daily Variety said.
Fleming will tell the story of how the author's womanising ways and spy background shaped his signature secret agent creation.
"He was an extraordinary thinker who helped shape what the modern spy was, both in his work at MI6 and in his novels," Lazar told the daily.
Fleming was born into a wealthy family and became a journalist covering the Soviet Union, a stint that led him to join the British intelligence service.
Fleming was the mastermind of numerous clever spying schemes, some deemed too outlandish to use. He dreamed of becoming a daring secret agent and adapted his own womanising and the stories he heard to craft the Bond novels.
News of the production came amid a flurry of news reports that Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson had picked British actor Daniel Craig, 37, to replace incumbent Bond Pierce Brosnan.
Bond movie studio MGM has declined to comment on the reports, which said an official announcement was imminent ahead of the scheduled start of shooting in January of Casino Royale, Fleming's first Bond book, written in 1953.
- AFP
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