Alex Rider

The series adapts Horowitz's novels one book per season, starting with Point Blanc rather than Stormbreaker. Same premise and same character: a fourteen-year-old recruited by MI6 after his guardian is killed. Horowitz is an executive producer. Filed MEDIUM because the adaptation ages the character up and drops the gadget comedy the early books ran on, which is a real change of register rather than a compression.

Both spy kids but from the words of Muchamore : “I didn't want clean cut heroes like Harry Potter or Alex Rider.”

Horowitz has openly described Alex Rider as being influenced by James Bond, while also deliberately adapting the formula for a younger audience. Horowitz took recognizable conventions of the Bond/spy-thriller tradition and reworked them:

• Teenage protagonist instead of adult professional spy
• Gadgets and technology
• Exotic international locations
• Elaborate villains and secret organizations
• Infiltration and espionage missions
• Action-oriented set pieces
• The fantasy of the highly capable secret agent