James McAvoy has been linked with the role of James Bond creator Ian Fleming in a new film about the writer’s life.

Atonement actor McAvoy, 30, has been tipped to portray the author in a film based on Fleming’s own eventful life – the move is based on the book Ian Fleming: The Man Behind James Bond.

Palmstar Entertainment, an independent US studio and producers Animus Films, are reportedly planning to shoot the film next year.

Dustin Rowles of website Pajiba said: “The movie – which has been independently financed to the tune of around $40 million – has James McAvoy attached in the lead.

“McAvoy actually seems well suited to the role – he can do playboy, he can do period and war movie, and he can do action.

“Plus, he’s an excellent actor with a dry sense of humour befitting not just Fleming, but Bond.”

McAvoy, whose latest film is The Last Station, about author Anton Chekhov, is attached to a further four films over the next two years including The Conspirator, a story on the assassination trial of Abraham Lincoln.
Fleming, who died in 1964, aged 56, was the offspring of a Scottish banking dynasty. After Eton he dropped out of Sandhurst and worked as a journalist for Reuters before the war.

On the outbreak of war he was recruited to Naval Intelligence, and was promoted to Commander with the code name 17F.

Later on he was put in charge of a specialist unit of commandos, known as 30 Commando, whose brief was to target enemy headquarters, to steal documents and items of equipment with an intelligence value that might otherwise be overlooked.

In 1953, Fleming published his first novel, Casino Royale, with his superspy James Bond modelled loosely on several former wartime colleagues.

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