Shaken, not stirred, and licensed to kill, Connery also came comparatively cheap: just $US17,000 for his work on the first Bond film, 1962's Dr No.

By the time the second Bond film came out – 1963's From Russia with Love – Connery's salary had escalated to $US250,000.

And since then it has soared. By the time of 1971's Diamonds are Forever, Connery was paid $US1.2 million and took a slice of the film's profits.

Every actor since – bar George Lazenby, who took home an insulting $US80,000 – has been paid between $US1 million (Roger Moore, for Live And Let Die) and $US24 million (Daniel Craig, for Spectre) to play the part.

Now Craig, who has already starred in four films in the Bond franchise – Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre – is being offered a reported $US150 million ($198 million) to stay with the franchise.

It's a particularly generous payday, though it would be for a two-film deal.

In Craig's favour: he is on the record saying he would rather "slash my wrists" than film another Bond movie.

It would also confirm him as the highest paid James Bond in history, though that technically happened when he was paid $US17 million for Skyfall in 2012, which inched him ahead of the then-record $US16.5 million paid to Pierce Brosnan for Die Another Day.

Trying to understand the real value of the deal is difficult as it comes with no fine print.

Indeed it is a report in the UK Daily Mirror, quoting the website Radar, which itself is quoting unnamed sources.

As journalistic bedrock goes, it is not the most solid. Particularly when you're trying to see it through the prism of Hollywood accounting, which makes as much mathematical sense as microwaving the balls of an abacus until they explode. But let's assume for the moment it's a serious offer.

Straight up, no one is being paid $US150 million for a film, and certainly not in a lump sum payment.

Only four actors in the history of cinema have had more than a $US100 million payday, and only then via "profit participation" in the film.
They are: Keanu Reeves, for The Matrix, Bruce Willis, for The Sixth Sense, Tom Cruise, for Mission: Impossible II and War of the Worlds, and Will Smith, for Men in Black 3.

So, what is more likely here is that Craig is being offered a deal in which he takes a regular Bond salary – as regular as that is – and also a slice of the profits.

In the history of Bond only two actors – Connery and Moore – have been paid so-called "profit participation", usually only for their last few films, and it added many millions onto their paydays.

It's typically a deal-sweetener, used to persuade actors who are restless and wanting to move on that staying on for a few more films in the franchise is a good idea.

To measure how sensible a risk a $US150 million payday becomes then, we have to look at cost versus box-office return.

For most of the life of the Bond franchise, the films returned box office totals of somewhere around the $US100 million to $US200 million mark.

You Only Live Twice was the first Bond film to crack $US100 million, and Moonraker the first to crack $US200 million.

With actor Pierce Brosnan in the role, and in a more machine-like film economy, the box-office return on Bond movies escalated to about $US350 million for Brosnan's first outing, GoldenEye, to $US431 million, for Die Another Day, his last.

Daniel Craig – and here's the rub – took things to another level entirely.

His first Bond film, 2006's Casino Royale, took $US594 million, and then 2008's Quantum of Solace, $US576 million.

In tandem with director Sam Mendes, his next two films went off the scale: 2012's Skyfall pulled more than $US1 billion at the box office, and 2015's Spectre,  just shy of $US900 million.

And on those numbers, suddenly, a $US150 million payday seems not just achievable, but almost sensible. Almost.

Ultimately, the value to the Bond franchise is that Craig is a known property, in a business where known properties are worth a lot more than unknown properties.

And as absurd as that might seem for the only franchise, apart from the BBC's Doctor Who, which is built on the idea that the role is regularly recast, in the modern film business certainty is a valuable thing.

Once upon a time, a brand like Bond, or Batman, was as financially certain as granny bonds and your savings passbook account. Today? Not so much.

For exhibit A you need look no further than Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, an experiment in Hollywood accounting that should have brought two brands together and trebled their value; instead, thanks to audience disaffection, they almost cancelled each other out.

The history of Bond demonstrates that they don't always make the right decision either. While Connery, Moore and Brosnan might seem like definitive Bonds, the audiences were not fond of Lazenby, nor Timothy Dalton.

With a loyal but capricious audience like that, Craig represents the kind of box-office certainty that Hollywood accounts love.

And that might – just might – make him the $US150 million man.