Fun fact: Douglas Adams, the creator of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, actually wrote most of the movie script. He died before the film was finished, but they kept it mostly the way he intended. So everyone complaining that it missed the point of the books or deviated wildly from the source material are arguing against the original creator’s intent.
Another fun fact: One of Douglas Adams’ running jokes with the Hitchhiker series is that it’s never told exactly the same twice. There was a radio show, novel series, video game, comic book, movie… and every version is different. Sometimes the story is told slightly different, sometimes it comes to a completely different conclusion. So having a “loyal/faithful” version made is technically impossible, as there’s no official canon story to recreate. Not should there be, as the ever-evolving retelling is part of the joke.
As a fan of the books in particular, I’d love to see an anthology TV series that is somewhat loyal to the book version. But I understand that Douglas Adams wouldn’t want that, so I’m happy for the various media we have so far.
I mentioned this on Reddit years ago, but I would love to make a TV miniseries for James Bond that’s a period drama, 100% faithful to the original Ian Fleming novels.
Novel Bond was about a dull, uninteresting man whom things happened to. He was a dark and cynical man, thanks to his draining line of work. A loveless, high-functioning alcoholic who did his best work with a few drinks in him at all times. Which is likely why his drink of choice was a vodka martini; a strong, stiff drink to get him going when the going gets tough.
And the books were written in the 1950s, shortly after WWII, of which Ian Fleming served as a British Naval Commander and Intelligence officer. So Bond was written partially based on the experiences of real-world missions that Fleming commanded during the war.
Then in the 1960s, the movie rights for one of Fleming’s novels was sold and they reinvented James Bond for the big screen. People in that era didn’t want a dark, hopeless, cold-blooded assassin. They wanted a hero they could cheer for. So he was made a handsome, suave womanizer, with a penchant for social drinking and smoking (sexy vices of the time). He always dressed for style, always had expensive and luxurious tastes in cars and living, always saved the day, and he always got the girl. He was an idol for men and a dreamy catch for women.
Back in those days, they didn’t care much for loyalty to the source material, so while they were reinventing Bond, they decided to beef up his adventures too. The movies rarely had anything to do with the books, except for borrowing the titles every now and then, plus some key plot points once in a blue moon. And Movie Bond grew with the times. He got more technologically advanced gadgets, bigger global stakes, and more modern threats.
For example, the Moonraker novel was about Bond stopping a nuclear warhead from launching at London, whereas the Moonraker movie was about fighting a villain in space, who planned to poison humanity and repopulate the Earth with genetically superior humans aboard his space station. Totally different stories, same title.
Movie Bond changed in the '90s when Albert R. Broccoli, the producer of the films, passed away and left the franchise to his daughter Barbara (who had been involved with the franchise since the late '70s) along with her brother, Wilson. Barbara helped to reinvent Bond for the modern era, removing his smoking, reducing his drinking, and giving him strong, intelligent women to work with (or fight against) instead of rescuing ditzy damsels in distress.
Then… Austin Powers came out in 1997 and it was a complete parody of James Bond. The trilogy satired every common spy trope that James Bond had made famous over the decades. And it was a global hit. Barbara was pissed. She claimed that Austin Powers completely fucked them over. By turning their formula into a joke, Bond would forever be compared to Austin Powers.
So she rebooted the entire franchise in 2006 with Casino Royale, a movie based on the very first James Bond novel, and mostly faithful to the original story (except set in modern times). It was a return to the dark, gritty origins of the character. Bond was a high-functioning alcoholic, a blunt instrument who was fiercely loyal to his country, but still a wildcard who could barely be controlled.
This Daniel Craig era of films was excellent, my personal favorite version of James Bond out of his many decades of history. And the closest version to the original books, even if only the first movie was actually based on a book.
But I still want to see an actual period piece, set in the 1950s, that follows the original novels faithfully. I would love to see it as a TV miniseries because some of the books are just collections of random short stories, and some books themselves are hard to tell in movie-length detail without adding a bunch of fluff. Like the Casino Royale novel, which was 90% just a bunch of guys sitting at a table, gambling at baccarat. The 2006 film added a lot of action scenes that didn’t exist in the original book, just to pad the runtime.
Amazon recently bought MGM Studios, the company that makes the James Bond movies, and Barbara Broccoli has been complaining online about Amazon trying to ruin Bond. They want to make spinoff TV series, movie franchises based on side characters, as well as their own version of Bond films that Barbara doesn’t agree with. She claims they’re overriding her creative control and are going to run the franchise into the ground at a breakneck pace.
The last I heard, Barbara and Wilson begrudgingly ceded creative rights to James Bond to the new Amazon MGM Studios earlier this year under a $1 billion contract. So the James Bond franchise may already be doomed.