Okay, so you might be more familiar with a bunch costumed superheroes when someone says “The Avengers” to you—but to UK-based readers of a certain age, it means only one thing: The spy-fi adventures of John Steed and Emma Peel. They could return to TV too, if Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller has anything to say about it.


Fuller recently sat down with TV Line, as well as a whole host of producers, to discuss the series they’d most like to reboot—Fuller chose the classic ITV series The Avengers, which followed the story of John Steed (and although Steed had several partners during the series, most famously he was alongside fellow spy Emma Peel, played by Diana Rigg), a crime-solving secret agent. Fuller even offered a pretty surprising choice to replace the beloved Patrick MacNee as Steed:

I would love to reboot The Avengers with Eddie Izzard as John Steed. That would be wonderful.


As much as we’d love to see Fuller get his hands on The Avengers—and the ensuing fallout of confusion and copyright that would inevitably come with having to deal with Marvel’s Avengers—we’re not too sure on Izzard as Steed. Our own Rob Bricken offered up a much more tantalizing offer of Idris Elba—a spy/detective character that’s completely different to Elba’s own Luther for the BBC, and considering he’s already been heavily rumored for the role of James Bond for ages, the chance to see him play an gentlemanly English eccentric like Steed would be amazing.

As for Ms. Peel? We rather like Digital Spy’s own suggestion of Natalie Dormer, who of course currently plays the Granddaughter of Diana Rigg’s Olenna Tyrell on Game of Thrones. Sci-fi spy action with Idris Elba and Natalie Dormer? How many dark, lurid sacrifices do we have to make to the old gods to get this one to happen? Because we’d do all of them.

[Via Digital Spy]