The search for Pierce Brosnan's successor took in over 200 actors from three continents.

"I was desperately afraid, and Barbara was desperately afraid, we would go downhill," said Michael G. Wilson. The NY Times reported that he even told that to Pierce Brosnan.

"We are running out of energy, mental energy," Mr. Wilson recalled saying. "We need to generate something new, for ourselves."

According to several executives involved in the project, Ms. Broccoli had already settled on Mr. Craig by April.

But by the summer, Amy Pascal (Sony motion picture group's chief executive) wanted to begin a more exhaustive search that would include other, younger actors. Eventually, some 200 actors from throughout the British Commonwealth came up for discussion, Mr. Wilson said.

It was only after all these ruminations that the producers and Sony finally settled on Mr. Craig. "I think that he has a kind of intensity, and a sexuality, and a roguishness," Ms. Pascal said. "And he seems like he could be a spy."

In the late 1990's, market research showed Bond movies to have the oldest demographic of any action-adventure series. Lately, however, the booming success of Bond video games has driven a younger audience to the movies, Mr. Wilson said - which Sony and the producers do not want to disappoint.

For both Ms. Broccoli and Sony, executives said, the model was Jason Bourne, the character Matt Damon successfully incarnated in two gritty spy movies for Universal Pictures, "The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy."

But was the reason to drop Brosnan anything to do with the rumoured pay demands? Wilson said the decision did not have to do with money. "If we wanted to make a deal, we would've made a deal with Pierce at some financially viable level," he said. "This was about us trying to find new inspiration for the series."

Meanwhile, Pierce Brosnan has hit back at the producers and their decision to drop him.

He told the British tabloid The Sun, "It sucks, completely! I was just getting the hang of it, you know?"

"But they wanted to go younger. They wanted to reinvigorate the part. Whether they made the right choice, who knows? They're probably scared shitless, thinking, ‘What have we done?’"

Right: Pierce Brosnan as 007 in "Die Another Day" (2002)