Whats the story with Never Say Never Again
Monza860
USPosts: 501MI6 Agent
I don't understand how did this movie get made. I've been told by several people that the movie was a remake of a bond movie. I was also told that it was made by Gypsies or so my uncle says. So whats the story with this movie?
Away at Boot Camp, won't be back until April the earliest.
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Back in the Day Fleming was asked about creating a TV show of James Bond. Fleming wrote a number of treatments for episodes of this said TV show along with Kevin McClory and James Wittingham, one of the tv shoow treatments eventually became Thunderball. when the TV show idea collapsed Fleming recycled the tratment into thunderball but did it without the permission of Wittingham and Mcclory. Fleming was took to court, several times I believe, and after a long conveluted court case, McClory got the rights to SPECTRE, Blofeld and Thunderball. EON had to pay McClory a substantial amount of money to use SPECTRE and Blofeld and to make the Movie Thunderball with Sean Connery. much later McClory started to believe that because he owned the rights to Thunderball, Blofeld and SPECTRE he could make his own Bond Movies and start up a rival franchise. He started writing an original Bond script until it became aparent that he could only remake Thunderball, becuase that is all he had the rights to do. Thus Never Say Never Again, a Thunderball Remake again with Sean Connery as James Bond was made.
That line should win an award of the week
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Yes, that's it all right {[]
"I am not an entrant in the Shakespeare Stakes." - Ian Fleming
"Screw 'em." - Daniel Craig, The Best James Bond EverTM
Roger Moore 1927-2017
You're mostly correct, Solaris, but you're mixing up two different scenarios. The Bond TV series came before the Thunderball troubles and was unconnected to McClory. Fleming wrote treatments for the television series, and when the series collapsed he rewrote them as short stories and published them in the For Your Eyes Only collection. He never had any legal troubles over them.
Thunderball began as an original motion picture. McClory was to direct, and he and Fleming worked out the initial story before giving it to Jack Whittingham to write as a final script. While the movie was in production Fleming novelized the screenplay. The production collapsed, Fleming published the novel without attribution, and along came the lawsuit.
As for EON--they didn't pay to use SPECTRE and Blofeld in the first two Bond films, and I don't think they had to pay McClory for use of them in YOLT or OHMSS (in DAF SPECTRE is never named, though Blofeld is in it). It was McClory who approached Broccoli and Saltzman with the idea to co-produce Thunderball. EON jumped at the chance and made McClory agree to not attempt to make another Bond film for ten years after the release of Thunderball. The rest is history.
Connery certainly needed a hit by 1983, but some of his most interesting work was in the '70s. Obession, A Bridge Too Far, The Man Who Would Be King, The Anderson Tapes, Cuba, The Molly Maguires, good films one and all (I'll ignore Zardoz and Meteor). He'd also just made Outland, which was High Noon in space, and someting of a taster for Bladerunner in it's forlorn take on the future of law enforcement.
IMO Connery gives a pretty good performance in NSNA, much better than the one's Sir Roger was turning out for Eon. Without NSNA I am not certain Connery's star would have risen as high as it did, he certainly wouldn't have got The Untouchables, because he wouldn't be seen to be a bankable. NSNA confirmed his star status.