Quick question about spectre

laoghaire

What james bond films featured spectre and why did they stop featuring spectre?
:007)

Ask Dr No

The movies were:
Dr No
FRWL
TB
YOLT
OHMSS
DAF

And they stopped useing Spectre because Blofeld was killed. Even though, when you think about it, they could have premoted a new leader and keep going... but then that would take away everything that Blofeld gave us...

Dmitri Mishkin

I believe the lawsuit concerning Thunderball's script was one of the reasons SPECTRE didn't appear in any movies after Diamonds Are Forever. The death of Blofeld at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only was a way of dealing with his absence in the movies and he isn't officially named in the film. This also explains why the organization is called Octopus, not SPECTRE in the From Russia With Love video game.

Yankee Mike Bravo

Dmitri Mishkin wrote:

I believe the lawsuit concerning Thunderball's script was one of the reasons SPECTRE didn't appear in any movies after Diamonds Are Forever. The death of Blofeld at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only was a way of dealing with his absence in the movies and he isn't officially named in the film. This also explains why the organization is called Octopus, not SPECTRE in the From Russia With Love video game.

That's ringing a faint bell in the back of my head. IIRC, MGM owns the rights to all Bond films except Thunderball, which is owned by Sony. SPECTRE was introduced in the Thunderball novel. So, when Spectre began showing up in MGM films, Sony either sued or threatened to sue.

Sir Miles

Yankee Mike Bravo wrote:

Dmitri Mishkin wrote:

I believe the lawsuit concerning Thunderball's script was one of the reasons SPECTRE didn't appear in any movies after Diamonds Are Forever. The death of Blofeld at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only was a way of dealing with his absence in the movies and he isn't officially named in the film. This also explains why the organization is called Octopus, not SPECTRE in the From Russia With Love video game.

That's ringing a faint bell in the back of my head. IIRC, MGM owns the rights to all Bond films except Thunderball, which is owned by Sony. SPECTRE was introduced in the Thunderball novel. So, when Spectre began showing up in MGM films, Sony either sued or threatened to sue.

Sort of.

MGM/Eon now own the rights to Thunderball & Never Say Never Again - they traded them for the rights to Spiderman when Sony threatened to back a rival Bond franchise.

Dmitri Mishkin

Sir Miles wrote:

Yankee Mike Bravo wrote:

Dmitri Mishkin wrote:

I believe the lawsuit concerning Thunderball's script was one of the reasons SPECTRE didn't appear in any movies after Diamonds Are Forever. The death of Blofeld at the beginning of For Your Eyes Only was a way of dealing with his absence in the movies and he isn't officially named in the film. This also explains why the organization is called Octopus, not SPECTRE in the From Russia With Love video game.

That's ringing a faint bell in the back of my head. IIRC, MGM owns the rights to all Bond films except Thunderball, which is owned by Sony. SPECTRE was introduced in the Thunderball novel. So, when Spectre began showing up in MGM films, Sony either sued or threatened to sue.

Sort of.

MGM/Eon now own the rights to Thunderball & Never Say Never Again - they traded them for the rights to Spiderman when Sony threatened to back a rival Bond franchise.

Sounds like a good trade, the spiderman franchise makes a lot of dough.

Sir Miles

Dmitri Mishkin wrote:

Sounds like a good trade, the spiderman franchise makes a lot of dough.

Yea - but that was still a gamble, who knew how the Spiderman films would have panned out ? ) Whilst Bond had the proven track record. Perhaps MGM didn't have the money to make a Spiderman film and went with the 'safe' option ?

Still - a good deal

Mathis

I heard Blofeld and SPECTRE were to make a comeback in TSWLM but EON wanted to get into more lawsuits so they changed the script. I think they should bring Blofeld back and use the You Only Live Twice novel as a source.

DaltonFan1

Mathis wrote:

I heard Blofeld and SPECTRE were to make a comeback in TSWLM but EON wanted to get into more lawsuits so they changed the script.

Actually I believe the character Karl Stromberg was originally meant to be Blofeld and retained characteristics such as a failure to shake hands due to hand injuries. But the rights to the character Blofeld were not held by EoN so they had to change the character somewhat.

Yankee Mike Bravo

Mathis wrote:

I heard Blofeld and SPECTRE were to make a comeback in TSWLM but EON wanted to get into more lawsuits so they changed the script. I think they should bring Blofeld back and use the You Only Live Twice novel as a source.

But it isn't the source. There's only one source for SPECTRE, and it is the novel Thunderball.

Sir Miles

DaltonFan1 wrote:

Actually I believe the character Karl Stromberg was originally meant to be Blofeld and retained characteristics such as a failure to shake hands due to hand injuries.

Stromberg refused to shake hands because he had webbed fingers - not hand injuries.

Wint and Kidd far-out

So Stromberg's death in TSWLM could have possibly been the intended final demise for Blofeld. The memory of the death of Tracy would certainly have fitted in logically with the way Bond enjoyed pumping all those bullets into Stromberg. Though I can easily imagine Bond continuing to fire until his weapon was empty and saying "Now my Tracy can rest in true peace".