Benedict Cumberbatch "has confirmed that he remains committed" to adapting Geoffrey Household's Rogue Male, the 1939 British novel that he said inspired Ian Fleming to write the James Bond books, Deadline reported. Cumberbatch and his production company SunnyMarch had announced in 2016 that they planned to adapt the novel, but it hasn't happened yet.
"It's the original fugitive novel and a huge inspiration for Ian Fleming for Bond. When we first sat down to talk about this, [we thought] is this a bit of a guy's film?" he said recently on the SmartLess podcast, adding that he hoped to schedule shooting for 2026.
"The longer we were exploring the themes of it and the motivation behind the guy's actions, and the outcome, and how he's turned on by his own side, as well as the side he's tried to take down, it's fascinating how it plays into the political spectrum of what's going on in the world right now," Cumberbatch added. Peter O'Toole appeared in a 1977 BBC TV adaptation of Rogue Male, and the 1940 Twentieth Century Fox movie Man Hunt was also based on it.