Luther star Idris Elba would be perfect as James Bond, according to filmmaker Ron Howard.

The British star is rumoured to be on a shortlist of actors in the running to take over from Daniel Craig as the suave spy, along with Aidan Turner, Tom Hiddleston and Michael Fassbender.

Ron worked with Idris on the adaptation of author Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, and believes the actor has what it takes to slip on 007′s tux.

He told Radio Times magazine: “He’s got such a presence, and is so cool.

“I’d love to see him as Bond.”

Ron’s latest movie is Eight Days A Week, a documentary about The Beatles, while his upcoming projects include Inferno, the third film to be adapted from Dan Brown’s books after The Da Vinci Code and Angels And Demons, and Mars, a “very experimental” big-budget production for television.

The US director said it was an exciting time for television and he credited the BBC with ushering it in.

Ron has previously said that the BBC would do a few episodes of a programme and then make more if audiences liked it, while TV in America was “more of a manufacturing exercise”.

He told Radio Times: “The BBC was a trailblazer for our industry. US TV networks never really borrowed from that, but cable did. And when cable began emulating the BBC, the creative community rallied around it.

“Because it suddenly wasn’t an either/or decision – it wasn’t, ‘I’ll do movies with theatre, or I’ll do TV.’ Suddenly writers, directors and especially world-class actors ran to that medium.

“And it proved that there was a real audience for it in America as well. It’s been a huge revolution.”

This week’s Radio Times is on sale today (Tuesday September 6).