Why was Casino Royale so late to appear as a serious Bond movie. The farce with David Niven and Woody Allen was clearly something that the owners of the franchise cringed at, as being both exploitative of their success, and perhaps taking a chance on breaking their momentum.
So, was it because of copyright? Did someone own the copyright to that one that had a grudge against the producers of Dr. No, et alia ?
Ian Fleming sold the film rights to Casino Royale for a piddling $1000 to Gregory Ratoff in the fifties, who produced a serious one-hour television adaptation in 1954 for an anthology series titled Climax!. Though there was some talk about an entire television series based on Bond, written by Fleming, nothing came of it and Ratoff sold the film rights to Casino Royale to Charles K. Feldman, who produced the spoof film in 1967. In 1961, Fleming sold the rights to all his other novels to Albert “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, which created quite a stir when they figured this included the novel Thunderball, leading to a much more complicated story and Never Say Never Again.
I’m guessing the late date is due to the film rights finally reverting back to Fleming’s estate, or EON Productions (owned by Cubby’s daughter and stepson) making an acceptable offer to Feldman or whoever he passed the rights to.
Here I spent all this time double-checking my facts on the 1954 Bond TV ep and Bryan comes in and scoops me.
Well, thanks to you both!
I’ll have you know that the 1967 version of Casino Royale is the BESTEST Bond film ever, and none of the others are even worth watching.
Anyway, most of the others show a serious issue with continuity, considering that everybody’s dead at the end of Casino Royale.
Yes, of course it’s my opinion. Not humble, though, simply unified with objective reality. 