'Hi, the name is Bond, the new Bond': Hit series Peaky Blinders' creator says he has licence to reinvent super spy James Bond

CANNES/ASIA (AFP): Steven Knight, the creator of hit series "Peaky Blinders", who is writing the next "Bond" movie, has strongly hinted that the ageing British spy is about to get really shaken and stirred.

The writer said that Amazon has given him a licence to play with the legendary MI6 secret agent created by author Ian Fleming.

"Bond has been bulletproof. People have been able to make mistakes and variations and the character has survived," Knight told Screen magazine at the Cannes Film Festival.

"Because the core of it is like a diamond. You can't touch it. The person you are talking about is folklore," he added.

The writer told reporters that he has done research with "the SAS and even more secret outfits" for his reinvention of the next 007 movie, the first produced by Amazon.

He said he has met special forces and secret services personnel as part of his immersion in their world.

"I am talking to them about what they do every day. It's all real," he said of scenarios he is exploring.

- New 'Peaky Blinders' series -

Bond's creator Fleming himself "was living that life in the war (World War II)" as an intelligence officer, he added.

"He was doing those things. He knew people doing that stuff, going out there and killing people."

But Knight said his lips were sealed on what new turns Bond might take.

"I can't say anything on the script," he insisted to Screen.

Knight, who has just completed a documentary about Oasis's record-breaking reunion tour, is in Cannes to drum up business for his Digbeth Loc studio in his native Birmingham, where "Peaky Blinders" is set and shot.

"We are filming the next series (of 'Peaky Blinders') at the moment, we will have it in the can in a few weeks," he told industry site Deadline. "People are going to be pleasantly surprised how it has turned out, because it is so good." -- AFP