# Never Say Never Again **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 4, 2002, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884 "2002-04-04T23:29:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2002, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/1 "2002-04-04T23:29:14Z")
The movie _Never Say Never Again_ is a James Bond movie. But it’s not considered an “official” James Bond movie. Why exactly is that? I know there was some legal controversy involved, but I don’t know the details. Anyone enlighten me? ---
**Author:** ![Protesilaus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Protesilaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Protesilaus)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/2 "2002-04-05T00:04:39Z")
It all stemmed from the co-authoring of the novel _Thunderball_. From the IMDB: > [@](#): > > [From Trivia for _Diamonds Are Forever_](http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0066995) > This was the last Bond movie by Eon to use SPECTRE or Blofeld. Afterwards, writer Kevin McClory won his legal claim against the Fleming estate that he, not Ian Fleming, had created the organization for the novel Thunderball. Blofeld is seen but not identified later in For Your Eyes Only (1981), as Eon arrangements with the Fleming estate do not permit them to use McClory’s works. > [@](#): > > [From Trivia for _Never Say Never Again_](http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0086006) > Author Kevin McClory (co-writer of Thunderball (1965)) had won the legal right to make his own 007 film as long as production started after 1975 and the story was based on Thunderball (1965). ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/3 "2002-04-05T02:13:06Z")
The problem stemmed originally when Ian Fleming (the James Bond novel writer) started to take an active role in writing screenplays. He and McClory and Jack Whittington kicked around ideas for a Jamaica-based nuclear bomb blackmail scheme and as many as ten different script treatments were written (the original title was _Latitude 78 West_). When the scriptwriting process stalled and Fleming headed off to Jamaica for his annual vacation, he went ahead and wrote the novel _Thunderball_, using concepts (including SPECTRE and Ernst Blofeld) that strictly speaking didn’t belong to him but were created during his spitball sessions with McClory and Whittingdon. After the ensuing legal battles, copies of the novel and movie _Thunderball_ all had to be marked as “based on a screen treatment by Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory and Jack Whittington”. Fleming himself died in 1964, while the legal battles were still ongoing, and had used SPECTRE and Blofeld in two subsequent novels; _On Her Majesty’s Secret Service_ and _You Only Live Twice_. When the dust settled, McClory had the rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld (and still does) and this was how he was able to make the film _Never Say Never Again_ based on those premises. It is not really a remake of the movie _Thunderball_, but both films were from the same source material and are basically identical in premise. McClory could legally keep making Bond films, but only from the material created by him, Fleming and Whittingdon. That limits him to SPECTRE and Blofeld, essentially. I’m not holding my breath. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/4 "2002-04-05T02:45:47Z")
Some other interesting trivia from imdb: For Your Eyes Only (1981) The pre-title sequence is a dig at Kevin McClory, who owns the rights to Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE. The unnamed man in a wheelchair is obviously meant to be Blofeld, and disposing of him so early was producer Albert R. Broccoli’s way of saying that the success of 007 did not depend on him. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/5 "2002-04-05T05:06:07Z")
All of the above is true, but **Never Say Never Again** isn’t a official" Bod movie because it wasn’t made by Eon productions or Cubby Broccoli, and therefore doesn’t have many of the fatures the “official” Bond films have – the gun-barrel opening, the Maurice Binder title sequence, Desmond Llewellyn as “Q” (or even the title “Q”), etc. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/6 "2002-04-05T16:13:42Z")
But it did have Sean Connery. The best James Bond since Woody Allen played the role. ---
**Author:** ![Umbriel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/9de053/32.png) [@Umbriel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Umbriel)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/7 "2002-04-05T17:29:02Z")
I’m unfamiliar with how the movie franchise started. If SPECTRE and Blofeld originated with the writing of _Thunderball_, were there then a number of screenplays being knocked around before _Dr. No_ got produced? SPECTRE is mentioned in _Dr. No_, and its leader is featured in _From Russia With Love_ (though I don’t think the name “Blofeld” is mentioned in that or _Thunderball_, but debuts when Donald Pleasance introduces himself in _You Only Live Twice_). ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/8 "2002-04-05T19:16:39Z")
Sony Pictures was poised to do a James Bond movie called _Warhead 2000_ (one of the working titles for _Thunderball_ was _Warhead_) which was supposed to have Leem Neeson (or however you spell his name) as Bond and Connery as the villian. MGM/EON films managed to have the film killed through legal action. Not sure if Kevin McClory was involved in the production or not. ---
**Author:** ![ScriptAnalyst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f17d59/32.png) [@ScriptAnalyst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ScriptAnalyst)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/9 "2002-04-05T20:04:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Umbriel \* > \*\*I’m unfamiliar with how the movie franchise started. If SPECTRE and Blofeld originated with the writing of _Thunderball_, were there then a number of screenplays being knocked around before _Dr. No_ got produced? SPECTRE is mentioned in _Dr. No_, and its leader is featured in _From Russia With Love_ (though I don’t think the name “Blofeld” is mentioned in that or _Thunderball_, but debuts when Donald Pleasance introduces himself in _You Only Live Twice_). \*\* This is way too complicated to go into details, but the gist of it is this: Kevin McClory was for a very brief time supposed to be a young up-and-comer in the film business. He wanted to make some James Bond films, but he didn’t want to adapt the novels. So he sat down with Ian Fleming and Jack Whittington and came up with stories/treatments for film productions. However, some project McClory was working on tanked, and he was no longer perceived as being a “hot” producer, so he never managed to get a Bond film going. Around this time, Fleming sold the film rights for his novels to Albert Broccolli and Harry Saltzman. When the time the first 007 movie, DR. NO, was made, Broccolli and Saltzman believed they owned the rights to everything in the Bond universe, including material from THUNDERBALL, such as Spectre and Bloefeld. So in the film verison of DR NO they added a brief dialogue reference to Spectre, perhaps with the idea that the organization would make a good continuing threat on which to hang a franchise. Subsequently, the film version of FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE also had Spectre added to the plot. Screenwriter Richard Maibaum suggested in interviews that this was the producer’s way of pushing the film franchise in a direction that would enable it to be distributed in Russia someday; i.e, unlike the novels, in the films the villains were a supersecret organization of international terrorists, not Russian communists. Anyway, McClory managed to get a producer’s credit on THUNDERBALL. After that, Blofeld continued to appear in the Bond series, but references to Spectre were deleted. Years later, McClory managed to use his rights to the THUNDERBALL material as a way to get NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN made. McClory would also like to make a whole series of films based on the other treatments he developed with Whittington and Fleming. It seems clear that he owns the rights to the material in terms of the plots, but he doesn’t own the James Bond character, which is what has allowed MGM/UA to stop him so far. Of course, a couple years back, McClory (with the help of Sony pictures) claimed he owned the film version of the Bond character, which he maintained was a separate creation from the literary version. This didn’t fly in court, so for the time being it looks like a dead issue. Apparently, McClory has never considered the possibility of using his plots but creating a new character that he would own outright – no doubt because he knows the real selling point would be the Bond name. steve biodrowski [www.thescriptanalyst.com](http://www.thescriptanalyst.com) ---
**Author:** ![elf6c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2002, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/10 "2002-04-05T20:58:06Z")
Is just how horrible the movie is. While it unusual to have a bad Bond or a bad **Sean Connery** movie, this certainly is a stinker. However, after _Highlander 2, The Avengers, and Entrapment_ among other late career bombs he has been in, Sean Connery has wasted much of the goodwill he had built up as Bond. Oh well, _From Russia with Love_ is sure to be on ABC again soon. . . _-me_ ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2002, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/never-say-never-again/101884/11 "2002-04-06T02:03:58Z")
Just as a side note - [Coming Attractions](http://www.corona.bc.ca/films/mainFramed.html) posted a rumor today that the new **Austin Powers** movie (originally titled **Goldmember** until MGM complained and threatened to sue) will now be called **Never Say Member Again** 😃