Wade and Purvis' screenplay for
Let Him Have It (1991) (based on the true story of
Derek Bentley, a young man who gets caught up in street gangs in post war London and is later controversially hanged), displayed the writers' "outrage toward a system hell-bent on vengeance" and was called "first rate, no non-sense".
Barbara Broccoli, producer of the
James Bond films, hired Wade and Purvis to write their first Bond script because she had seen their film
Plunkett & Macleane (1999) and liked that it was "dark, witty, sexy and inventive". Purvis described their approach when they joined the Bond franchise as to "come in with ideas, things we've found in science magazines, on the internet, interesting weapons and what's happening in technology. Then we find a journey for Bond to go through." In their Bond collaborations, Wade generally does "all the verbiage at the beginning of the script." They created a novelisation of their Bond script for
The World Is Not Enough in collaboration with
Raymond Benson. Wade and Purvis also wrote a script for a Bond spin-off featuring the
Die Another Day character
Jinx (
Halle Berry), which was attached to director
Stephen Frears, but cancelled by MGM because of budget concerns and "creative differences". Their 2003 Bond parody,
Johnny English starring comedian
Rowan Atkinson, received generally mixed reviews from critics, receiving a 33% "rotten" rating at the review site
Rotten Tomatoes. However, the film earned $160.5 million in its global box office receipts. A sequel,
Johnny English Reborn, based upon their characters but written by
Hamish McColl, was released in 2011. Purvis and Wade wrote and produced
Return to Sender (also known as
Convicted), which was described as a "gripping tale" of a man "fighting to prevent a miscarriage of justice". In 2005, they co-authored the bio-pic
Stoned (also known as
The Wild and Wycked World of Brian Jones) about the last days of the life of
The Rolling Stones co-founder,
Brian Jones, which they based on an account from a builder on the farm where Jones died, claiming that Jones's death was not accidental as recorded by the coroner. When
Daniel Craig was signed on as the new Bond, Wade described their approach to screenwriting thus: "When you have an actor you play to his strengths ... He's got this great toughness to him but not an unthinking toughness. I think that's where the films will need to go." Their first work for Craig as Bond,
Casino Royale, was nominated for a
BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and received a 4/4 review from Roger Ebert, who stated that the film "has the answers to all my complaints about the forty-five-year-old James Bond series, and some I hadn't even thought of." However, their follow up
Quantum of Solace, which was not based on any
Ian Fleming work, was criticised because while having "the right ingredients: plenty of car, plane or boat chases ... spooks, vendettas, and turncoats", it lacked the "magic, and a decent plot." Their screenplay for
Skyfall, which they co-wrote with
John Logan, was described by Frank DiGiacomo of
Movieline as being "very wily" for having Bond experience a
mid-life crisis. In 2012, it was announced that "after a tremendous run" with the Bond franchise, Wade and Purvis would not be involved in the 24th Bond film, which would be solo written by Logan. In November 2014, it was announced that the BBC has commissioned Wade and Purvis to adapt
Len Deighton's 1978 novel
SS-GB. It was broadcast on BBC One in five one-hour episodes from 19 February 2017 and 19 March 2017. On 10 March 2017, it was reported that they were approached to write the script for
No Time to Die. In July 2017, it was initially reported they would write the script, but in May 2018, EON announced that director
Danny Boyle was instead working with his regular collaborator
John Hodge on a new script. In September 2018, following Boyle's departure from the project, Purvis and Wade were re-hired to write a new script. ==Family life==