Pierce Brosnan was offered the role of James Bond, but the publicity improved "Remington Steele"s ratings and it was renewed, requiring Brosnan to contractually return to the show, this caused Eon Productions to have to look elsewhere for the new 007. The producers instead hired Timothy Dalton for "The Living Daylights" (1987), and "Licence to Kill" (1989). While Brosnan was reluctant to discuss losing the Bond role, in part because Dalton was a friend, he appeared in Diet Coke commercials portraying what the "Los Angeles Times" described as "a dashing Bond-like character", and NBC advertised "Noble House" with Brosnan dressed in a
James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me since "Colonel Sun" nearly a decade earlier. Christopher Wood, himself a novelist, and who co-authored the screenplay with Richard Maibaum, was commissioned to write the book, which was given the title "James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me". Wood would also novelize the screenplay for the next Bond film, "Moonraker" in 1979. The novelization and the screenplay, although both written by Wood, are somewhat different. In the novelization SMERSH has been reactivated some time before the start of the novel, and is still after James Bond. Their part in the novelization begins during the "pre-title credits" sequence, in which Bond