As is M, now played by Dame Judi Dench

Full Monty star Robert Carlyle, as villain Renard, who has the advantage of being impervious to pain.

Director Michael Apted, seen with miniature effects supervisor John Richardson and second unit director Vic Armstrong.

In 1962, when Dr No came out at the cinema and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was in Britain’s bookshops, Bond was seen as something of a cad - too self-confident to be truly British; too much of a ladies man to be a gentleman as well. The sort of chap, in short, you’d be happy to have spy for Queen and country, but would probably not invite along for a weekend’s shooting on the jolly old country estate.

Bond has, however, long since become the epitome of an English gentleman (somewhat ironically, since his two best portrayers have been a Scot and an Irishman). But it wasn’t the character that had changed: it was England - and, for that matter, the world.

“I think of Bond as a pretty consistent character,” says Michael G Wilson, stepson of legendary Bond film creator Cubby Broccoli. Wilson co-wrote all the films from For Your Eyes Only (Bond 12) to Licence to Kill (Bond 16) and has produced or co-produced everything since A View to a Kill (Bond 14). “Like anyone who lives in his world,” explains Wilson, “Bond is not unaffected by it. He’s mostly the same character as always, with pretty much the same ideas. But the world has changed around him, so now it’s about how this character interacts with the present world.

“One’s personal view of the James Bond character depends on whether your first exposure was from the books or the films,” continues Wilson. “And, if it was from the films, it depends on which actor played the role. In both the books and the films, Bond is a secret agent with a licence to kill, a connoisseur, attractive to women... But in the books, he is a more serious character, consumed with self-doubt, often ruthless and not always successful with women.

“The Sean Connery-style movie Bond had that same ruthless quality - but with humour, not as serious as the books. Roger Moore played the part with an even lighter touch. Timothy Dalton introduced a reflective, thoughtful mood to the role. With Pierce Brosnan, we have gone back to the more serious style established in the earlier films... but with his particular charm and sense of humour.”

Initially major hits in Britain, Australasia and throughout Europe, Bond took slightly longer to conquer North America, despite the fact that President John F Kennedy cited Fleming as one of his favourite writers. But any idea of a quaint British caper movie has been firmly banished since the early eighties, and rendered seriously inaccurate by the massive success of the first two Brosnan movies, GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies. Now, the $100-million The World Is Not Enough looks set to take the world’s oldest movie franchise to new heights.

“I am convinced that the tremendous success of the James Bond series can be directly attributed to the quality that the pictures have been able to maintain,” says Wilson. “Cubby always insisted on the films having high production values. Barbara [Broccoli, Cubby’s daughter] and I will continue to produce the Bond films the same way and, hopefully, repeat the success of GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies.”