Ian Fleming - Legacy

Legacy

After Fleming's death, his literary executors periodically hired other authors to continue the James Bond novels. Between 1957 and 1964, Fleming worked intermittently with the author Geoffrey Jenkins on a Bond story idea. After Fleming's death, Jenkins was commissioned by Bond publishers Glidrose Productions to write a Bond novel, Per Fine Ounce, but it was never published. Starting with Kingsley Amis' Colonel Sun, under the pseudonym "Robert Markham" in 1968, several authors have been commissioned to write Bond novels, including Sebastian Faulks, who was asked by Ian Fleming Publications to write a new Bond novel in observance of what would have been Fleming's 100th birthday in 2008.

During his lifetime Fleming sold thirty million books; double that number were sold in the two years following his death. In 2008 The Times ranked Fleming fourteenth on its list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". In 2002 Ian Fleming Publications announced the launch of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award, presented by the Crime Writers' Association to the best thriller, adventure or spy novel originally published in the UK.

The Eon Productions series of Bond films, which started in 1962 with Dr. No, continued after Fleming's death. Along with two non-Eon produced films, there have been twenty-three Eon films, with the most recent, Skyfall, released in October 2012. The Eon Productions series has grossed $4,910,000,000 (over $12,360,000,000 when adjusted for inflation) worldwide, making it the second highest grossing film series, behind Harry Potter.

The influence of Bond in the cinema and in literature is evident in films and books as diverse as the Austin Powers series, Carry on Spying and the Jason Bourne character. In 2011 Fleming became the first English-language writer to have an international airport named after him: Ian Fleming International Airport, near Oracabessa, Jamaica, was officially opened on 12 January 2011 by Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Fleming's niece, Lucy.