Writer Steven Knight revealed in an interview at Cannes Film Festival that he met “special forces and secret services personnel” as part of the process of “immersion” into their world for the upcoming Bond 26. Even more curious, he went on to say that “Bond creator Ian Fleming himself “was living that life in the war (World War II)” as an intelligence officer,” which reads as the first genuinely eyebrow-raising hint from someone involved that a period Bond is at least on their radar. The implications of which would be hard to ignore, since a wartime Bond would strip the character back to a less polished and more shadowy figure navigating moral gray zones in a world on fire.

Most intriguingly, the myth of Bond would collide with the reality that inspired him, and for a franchise due for another reinvention, a period piece set in wartime espionage would be the boldest pivot in decades. The real question is not whether it could work creatively, but whether audiences are ready to follow Bond into the past to secure his future.