Quentin Tarantino Reveals the One Move Amazon Must Make to Revive James Bond

Everyone keeps arguing about who gets the tux next, but Quentin Tarantino thinks James Bond has a bigger problem to solve than casting. And honestly, his fix is simple, gutsy, and very, very British: read the books.

First, where Bond 26 supposedly stands

• Amazon MGM Studios is in the market for a new 007, with Callum Turner and Jacob Elordi currently floating to the top of the rumor mill.
• Denis Villeneuve is said to be in the director’s chair.
• Steven Knight is writing the script.

Tarantino’s pitch: stop riffing, start adapting

In a May 2023 interview, Tarantino — two-time Oscar-winning writer-director and lifelong Bond nut — laid out what he sees as the franchise’s long-running issue. Since 1962, the films have routinely borrowed Ian Fleming’s titles, villains, or a loose premise, then flown off to do their own thing. He even called out that classic-era stretch when Tom Mankiewicz’s scripts took some of the widest detours from the novels. Tarantino’s fix is not subtle, and that’s the point: actually adapt Fleming, faithfully, page to screen. A novel approach, literally.

"They should not remake the movies but actually just do the books, but do them the way they were written."

He would know a little about almost doing it himself. He was once attached to tackle Casino Royale, then later shrugged the whole thing off as something that never really got off the runway.

"So many of the books have these really classic names and really classic adventures."

The pushback (because of course)

When those comments resurfaced online, fans did what fans do. One camp argued that doing the novels properly means setting the movies in the era Fleming wrote them — Cold War, cigarettes, and all. Another pointed out that plenty of the original material is a time capsule with attitudes that would rub the modern franchise the wrong way. Both takes are fair. The interesting part is that Tarantino’s suggestion isn’t hypothetical — Bond has already tried something close to it.

The case study that backs him up

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is widely considered the most faithful Fleming adaptation in the bunch. The movie hews close to the book’s spine, even lifting stretches of dialogue nearly verbatim. It is not typically the first title that pops up when people list their personal bests, but the numbers are solid: it ranks 9th among Bond films on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 27) and 10th on IMDb (out of 25). That is respectable territory for an entry that put George Lazenby in the tux for his sole outing.

That last bit is the lingering what-if. Not to dunk on Lazenby, but in the 60s and 70s, Sean Connery and Roger Moore defined the character. If either of them had headlined the most faithful Fleming movie, we might be talking about it very differently today.

So, will Bond 26 actually do it?

If Villeneuve and Knight wanted to swing for the fences, a straight-from-Fleming pivot would be the boldest way to reset the table while a new actor steps in. Faithful adaptations would feel fresh precisely because the movies rarely tried it. Tarantino’s take doesn’t just poke the bear — it asks Bond to be Bond the way he was written. That might be the sharpest shake-up the franchise could get, no martini required.