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Scottish actor James McAvoy has been linked to
the role of James Bond's creator in an Ian Fleming
biopic under development...
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James McAvoy Linked To Ian Fleming Biopic
29th December 2009
Palmstar Entertainment and Animus Films are
developing a biopic based
on the life of Ian Fleming, according
to movie sit Pajiba.
Currently working under the title, Ian Fleming, the movie will
be about the man behind James Bond, specifically
focused on the years that gave him inspiration for the Bond character..
The movie
itself will be based on the book, Ian Fleming: The Man
Behind James Bond, by Andrew Lycett, who has also written
books on Arthur Conan Doyle, Dylan Thomas, and Rudyard
Kipling
The big news
here, however, is that the movie - which has been independently
financed to the tune of around $40 million - has
James McAvoy (pictured opposite) attached in the lead.
Pajiba concludes that
McAvoy seems well suited to the role: he can do
playboy (Bright Young Things), he can do period and war
movie (Atonement), and he can do action (Wanted). Plus,
he’s an excellent actor with a dry sense of humour
befitting not just Fleming, but Bond.
McAvoy currently has "I’m with
Cancer" on his schedule for filming in 2010 and "Wanted
2" in
the works, although the script has yet to be completed.
He has
just wrapped filming on "The
Conspirator".
The project is currently searching for a director, who
will be working off a script from Matt Brown. |
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According
to reports last year, Leonardo
DiCaprio became a producer on an Ian Fleming biopic project
back in early 2008. Co-producer Andrew Lazar was first to champion
the concept. "It's
going to be very different from the Bond films. There are a
lot of
different ways to crack biopics, but we're not trying to emulate
a Bond movie... The idea that this guy's life informed the James
Bond character is pretty fascinating", he told the paper.
The project was born around October 2005, the
same time that Daniel Craig was announced to the world as the
sixth actor to take on the role of 007 for the EON Productions
film series, when screenwriter Damian Stevenson sold his script
to studio Warner Bros.
Above: A young James McAvoy sporting
a Bond-style tuxedo
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Reports state that Stevenson then spent months
playing to-and-fro with the WB legal department, sorting out
the accuracy of Fleming's life story. Dozens of drafts were produced
with Lazar, and Stevenson raided the archives of the Bodleian
Library at Oxford University for 'out of print Fleming biographies'.
Stevenson said, "It's the real James Bond. In England, Ian
Fleming's exploits are much better well known. Talking to people
out here [Los Angeles], no one had any idea that M was based
on a real person, Miss Moneypenny was based on a real person."
Fleming's life has been the subject of two previous
productions: Goldeneye (1989)
starring Charles Dance as Fleming, and a 2005 UK television special
"Bondmaker" starring Ben Daniels.
MI6 understands that the project is in no way connected
to the Fleming estate.
Meanwhile, work on the new
James Bond movie (Bond 23) is
expected to start in December
2010 for release around November
2011.
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