William Boyd on the Bond films versus the novels and the canon's chronology

The 23rd 007 adventure was phenomenally popular, and not just amongst Bond fans, scooping over $1 billion at the box office and becoming one of the highest grossing films of all time.

However, this is a wave that continuation author William Boyd, who will offer up a new instalment of literary 007 in the Autumn, does not seek to ride.

“I don’t think they’ll ever make a retro Bond. Even Dr No which was written in 1955 was set in 1962 when the film was made. All the Bond films from then have been completely contemporary. They wouldn’t go back and make a Bond set in 1969. It would throw the whole franchise askew,” he tells The Independent.

“It’s interesting in Skyfall to see them referring back, as it were, to Bond's biography, but of course it is set in 2012 so Bond would have been 88. In a way I have the easier, or more logical, task, because my Bond is living his history. His schooldays, his parenting and upbringing is all there.”

"There is a disconnect between the film Bond and the literary Bond which is their contemporaneity. I don’t suffer from that."

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