Film Feud:The Battle of the Bonds

Welcome to the first edition of "Film Feud". In this first edition we will talk about the highly controversial and publicized "Battle of the Bonds". As everyone knows, James Bond is one of the most popular characters in cinematic history. His first appearance was an Ian Fleming novel Casino Royale. The novel was a hit and there were many attempts at an adaptation of the character on-screen.

In 1954, the first James Bond adaptation was released as the television show Climax!, an anthology series where each week different stories would be told. The show purchased the rights to Fleming's first Bond novel and on October 21, 1954, it aired. There were talks of the show adapting more Fleming novels but it was canceled and so Fleming moved on to try and get the character on the big screen.

In 1959, Fleming, Jack Whittingham, and Kevin McClory began to work on a screenplay for the first Bond movie. However, failure to come to a deal for financing canceled the project and Fleming used the screenplay's story for his novel Thunderball. In 1961, Albert R. Broccoli and his associate Harry Saltzman purchased the rights to all of Fleming's novels except for Casino Royale. They struck a deal with MGM to make the first Bond film, Dr. No. However, while this was transpiring a bigger issue was arising.

The year production began on Dr. No, the novel Thunderball was released and McClory with Whittingham filed suit claiming that the story was there idea and that Fleming had stolen it(Whittingham would drop the suit). The battle headed to court over whether or not Fleming plagerized McClory. However, before a settlement could be made, Fleming died of a heart attack induced by the stress of the suit. As a result, the suit was changed and now McClory found himself in a lawsuit with Brocoli and Saltzman. They came to a settlement as the courts ruled in favor of McClory.

However, needing cash, McClory gave the rights to "SPECTRE" and "Ernst Stavro Blofeld"(characters from Thunderball he created) to Saltzman and Brocoli as part of a 12 year deal. In 1965, Thunderball was released to theaters and was a hit. The producers gave McClory credit for the story and would use Blofeld and SPECTRE for the films You Only Live Twice, On Her Majessty's Secret Service, and Diamonds are Forever. The next two Bond films, Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun would not include SPECTRE or Blofeld. However, Saltzman and Brocoli planned on revisiting the two for the film, The Spy Who Loved Me.

But, there was a problem, McClory was unwilling to let them have the rights to the characters and as a result, the film had to be rewritten. It was that year(1976), that McClory and former James Bond actor, Sean Connery, would begin work on a remake of Thunderball. MGM/UA tried to block the remake but were unsuccessful. In 1981, McClory and producer Jack Schwartzman began work on the Thunderball remake. At the same time, MGM/UA with Brocoli began work on the 13th Bond film entitled Octopussy.

The media hyped up the feud and focused on who has been the better Bond, Connery or at the time Bond actor, Roger Moore. Initially both were set to be released on the same weekend, however, due to the release of Star Wars:Return of the Jedi, it was decided to release them seperately. The Thunderball remake entitled Never Say Never Again was mostly notable for its lack of usual Bonde features, mainly due to the fact that they could not use any of the elements of the MGM/UA series. This included...

• The pre-credit sequence
• James Bond's trademark "gun barrel" opening
• Bond's theme song
• Bond's trademark drink of "Martini, Shaken not Stirred"

On June 6, 1983, Octopussy was released but failed to reach Number 1 at the box office. Overall it managed to gross 187,500,000 dollars at the box office and 152,500,000 positive in budget cost. On October 9, 1983, Never Say Never Again was released and was Number 1 in the box office for 4 consecutive weeks making 160,000,000 dollars in the box office and 124,000,000 positive in budget cost. As a result, financially Octopussy was declared the winner, however, critically most saw Never Say Never Again as the superior film.

Over the next 15 years, McClory would attempt to remake Thunderball once more and in 1997, with Sony announced a rival James Bond series with Timothy Dalton(who portrayed Bond in The Living Daylights and License to Kill) as 007 once again. However, MGM would trademark the series and agreed with Sony to give Sony the rights to the Spider-Man film rights if Sony doesn't make the Bond series with McClory. In 1999, McClory attempted to sue MGM again claiming that he should have royalty rights to the series. However, the next year the lawsuit was dismissed with the judge ruling that McClory waited too long to file claim.

On November 20, 2006, 4 days following the release of Casino Royale, McClory died of natural causes at the age of 80. As of June 9, 2009, the fate of his rights to Thunderball remains unknown. As of this day, many nowadays perceive Never Say Never Again as the worst Bond film ever made. However, Octopussy, itself isn't seen too highly upon either. I personally watched both and felt that Never Say Never Again was superior in the sense it felt like a true Bond story. Currently, MGM does not consider Never Say Never Again as a real Bond film and neither do most of the fans. However, MGM does own the rights to the film nowadays.