If bookmakers are to believed, the race to replace Daniel Craig as the next James Bond is heating up, with Thor’s Tom Hiddleston now challenging Mad Max’s Tom Hardy and The Wire’s Idris Elba for the keys to 007’s Aston Martin DB10. It’s easy to see why: at Sunday’s Empire Awards in London even Spectre director Sam Mendes seemed convinced that the deeply jaded Craig needs a break, at the very least, if he is ever to star as Bond again.

Might 007 production company Eon be poised to make an announcement? And if so, which way will they go? There have been persistent rumours that the saga might one day return to its 60s roots, while back in the Pierce Brosnan era there was plenty of talk of “Jane Bond” female agent spin-offs. Former Labour leader Ed Miliband even suggested last year that Rosamund Pike would make a great 007.

And why not explore all those possibilities? We are, after all, living in the era of Marvel’s highly successful expanded universe of interconnected movie and TV superhero stories. Star Wars’ take on the concept is moving forward apace, and Warner Bros has 10 films based on the DC Comics back catalogue planned between now and 2020 (if it can convince film fans to look past the rubbish early reviews for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice). There has even been foolish talk of a “Ghostbusters universe”.

But Bond is just as big as any of the above, and right now seems even more suited to being split into multiple strands. Elba fans reckon the Hackney-born Londoner would make the perfect 21st-century 007, while Hiddlestonians see their Eton-educated man as the epitome of traditional Flemingesque toff sophistication. So why not take the opportunity presented by Craig’s mooted departure and give both versions screen time?

Elba’s casting as Craig’s replacement would allow the saga to continue its current trend towards modernisation, reflecting multi-cultural Britain by casting the first black Bond. Spectre married the highly topical issue of data snooping to the return of an established 007 icon, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but future instalments might flourish by jettisoning Bond’s old-fashioned obsession with 60s-style supervillains altogether. Imagine Elba infiltrating Isis cells, or taking down a Trump-esque American demagogue with a hidden, evil agenda. There are so many genuine threats in the world these days that 007’s writers hardly need to keep inventing fantastical ones.

Meanwhile a second series starring Hiddleston as the perfect suave and sophisticated 60s-era Bond would allow Eon to readapt the original Fleming novels on an annual basis, Harry Potter-style, with an emphasis on remaining true to the text. With Elba-Bond charged with racking up the blockbuster greenbacks, the period take could plump for a mid-budget approach more suited to the material. Our dapper hero isn’t always taking on world-conquering supervillains in the Fleming originals: in the short story version of For Your Eyes Only he avenges a murdered British couple living in Jamaica who were friends of M, while in The Spy Who Loved Me he saves a young woman from being assaulted.

There are more Bond plotlines which have hardly been seen on the big screen. The 1967 Roald Dahl-scripted adaptation of You Only Live Twice borrowed little more than the title and Japanese setting from its 1964 literary source, while fans of the movies might be surprised to learn that Fleming’s 1955 Moonraker novel barely leaves the shores of the United Kingdom, let alone blasting off into space.

Mad Men’s Matthew Weiner (it’s been rumoured before) would make a fabulous director for a 60s-set Bond saga. But there are numerous other candidates including Mendes himself, who would do an equally excellent job. Imagine if Alfonso Cuarón (director of the best Potter movie, The Prisoner of Azkaban) or even long-term Bond acolyte Quentin Tarantino could be convinced to sign up.

And while the idea of Halle Berry playing a female spy rather stalled after Die Another Day proved to be 007’s plumpest critical turkey, there’s surely room for a Netflix spin-off or two based around Bond’s perennial sidekicks. Miss Moneypenny: The MI6 Files has a certain ring to it, perhaps documenting Naomie Harris’s efforts to climb up the spyland ladder in a world which has not changed so much since the sexist 60s. And who wouldn’t stream a few episodes of Q: Gadget Man, with the underused Ben Whishaw artfully explaining the latest technological advances to a slew of lunkheaded 00 agents?

Speaking of which, beyond Goldeneye’s 006 (Sean Bean’s Alec Trevelyan), we’ve only seen glimpses of the other half dozen or so recipients of that famous License to Kill. Who’s up for James Bond: Agents of Her Majesty? The possibilities really are as endless as one of M’s famous scoldings.