Where I'm still confused with McClory's properties...
Miken Ayers
Posts: 41MI6 Agent
When after reading the most detailed beginning to end synopsis of the Thunderball controversy, the part that most confuses me is when he tried to remake it in the late 90s/early 00's Sony bought anything Bond related from McClory.
However the very next sentence said despite this he still went forward with attempting to make his own Bond films. Was he actually able to still do that or was he now just overstepping himself from a legal standpoint?
Also are the Thunderball/SPECTRE/Blofeld rights all under one roof with the main series after Sony bought MGM?
However the very next sentence said despite this he still went forward with attempting to make his own Bond films. Was he actually able to still do that or was he now just overstepping himself from a legal standpoint?
Also are the Thunderball/SPECTRE/Blofeld rights all under one roof with the main series after Sony bought MGM?
Comments
Hope this helps.
In all fairness Never Say Never Again had a worldwide total of 160 on a 36 million budget. That's far from a commercial failure.
It wasn't a commercial failure but I reckon they also lost a huge chunk of that in lawsuits with Eon....there were numerous lawsuits throughout the intervening years and they ALL would have cost a lot of money, time and effort to run and to fight...
That depends on a lot of factors. A lot of times lawsuits end with the loser covering the other's legal fees.
True...but there has to be an outcome for that to happen...and often there wasn't....it just dragged on and on...all the time costing more money...
I gotcha. But my question ultimately is, is SPECTRE and Blofeld all under the same roof again as far as rights go?
Yes they are....but I'm not convinced they have the desire to use them....better to leave sleeping dogs lie...
That's a shame. With the new continuity and all it would've been neat to see Bond with an ongoing antagonist in my lifetime. Quantum from the sounds of it has already been abandoned.
I did however find it fascinating that in the Everything or Nothing documentary, Eon seemed to have more ill will toward Fleming for adapting the original Thunderball script into a novel than they did with McClory for trying to stake his claim.
Too bad about S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and Bloefeld. There's always Smersh.
SMERSH wouldn't work in this day and age, unless they can make it stand for something.
SPECTRE is pretty much a criminal organisation like Quantum and vice-versa, so it's really just a name, isn't it? The concept is workable and Quantum is modern, so why not stick with that...
Btw I'd highly recommend the excellent 'the Battle or Bond' for a hugely entertaining and very detailed account of the entire Fleming /McClory /EON saga:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0955767008
I'll definitely check that out. My point about SMERSH was that even in TLD using them would still fly since the Cold War was still going on and there actually was a short lived SMERSH in the 50s.
I said it seems that way. Craig's been quoted as saying he doesn't want them back and the actor who played White made some public criticisms to QOS that probably means he won't be asked back. Also if we never see them again it could be due to Bond outing a bunch of them during the opera scene.
I own a copy of "The Battle for Bond", and I agree with you. It's very entertaining and informative.
As for the rights to SPECTRE and Blofeld as of 2006(I might be off here so please forgive me) MGM and EON productions have the rights to them, though I believe their is currently no plan to use them. As for the future of Quantum, I would hope that the producers would like to tie up the loose ends of QOS at some point. Also I remember Jesper Christensen( actor that Played Mr. White in CR and QOS) later apologizing for his remarks in that interview saying that he was quoted out of context.
I do hope that's true since I'd like to see them used again.
Now my question is, how were they allowed to use Blofeld in 007 Legends?
Or at this point no one knew who exactly owned what, so they paid off McClory's estate to just let them be. :P
I also have this book and it is a very interesting read. Of course, any author is human and will tend to lean on whatever side their conscience might lead them to; in this book particularly in its conclusions throughout, there was a leaning to exhonerate McClory but nonetheless there was still an attempt to be objective with the facts presented. For the record, I will admit that ever since I can remember, I've always considered McClory to be the villain in this conflict, admittedly because it's always easier to side with the victors, e.g., EON bolstered by the resounding success of their Bond series (on the flip side, anyone remember Jet Rink, the James Dean character in "Giant" and the awe and respect his success afforded him?)
Anyway, back to the book, "The Battle for Bond," viewing the "evidence," it seems to be a reasonable conclusion and one not so far flung or incredible, that the Bryce-Fleming-McClory-Wittingham team was responsible for two things that we Bond fans should be thankful for, (1) the improved depiction of Bond's world of espionage going forward with Fleming's books, which beforehand seemed underdeveloped and a bit behind the times, since Fleming drew much from his past experiences, whereas the TB film think-tank managed to dial into the contemporary political issues at that time; (2) The first EON team, Broccoli-Saltzman-Maibaum-Young, had available to them a copy of the Wittingham TB script via Fleming himself-the significance? The TB script that predated any EON development or screen treatment solved the problem of how to elegantly interpret the Bond of the books into the visual medium of cinema, e.g., making Bond suave, witty and charming, qualities that are often credited to Terence Young. The question to ask in regard to this particular thing, is that once having read the Wittingham script, could we confidently assume that this resulted in 0% influence on how EON developed Bond for the screen?
So, with these two results, how different would Fleming's writings have been had he not embarked on the film project with McClory? The possible differences wouldn't be all that groundbreaking, considering that he only had a few more books in him and many of the ones that preceded TB were excellent in their own right, though TB is distinguishable as the novel in which Fleming's world of espionage had come of age.
How different would the EON series be today, had McClory never crossed paths with Fleming? That one is also hard to predict and benefit of the doubt is owed to EON that they could have nonetheless pulled off a successful series, but to what degree? A better one? A lesser success? Would it still be around today? Or would it have been less enduring, having survived only in the 60's, or worse, after one or two movies? (Anyone remember Remo Williams in the 80's, or more recently, Van Helsing?)
With that, after reading what went on with the trial and other suits that followed years later, I finally saw why the courts ruled in favor of McClory, given the facts outlined in the books and it's no surprise that there were still any lingering, potential claims to the Bond character after all these years, only to be finally settled just now by the McClory estate and EON. Arguably, McClory et al. created the cinematic Bond character, which is distinctly different from the book version and EON should appreciate that enough (lest they be the "Nothing" supposedly denoted in their name) so paying off McClory's estate shouldn't be that painful.
Someone earlier posted that though a pain for EON, Fleming was the goose that laid the golden egg, but in terms of film success, McClory was somehow involved in the alchemy of the goose's reproductive process.
Ok, Fleming lifted large parts of the TB plot
But EON had all rights on the figure 007.
Instead of being allowed to use extensively and maybe exclusively the TB plot with a hero "John Smith", how can he get the rights to use the 007 figure in movies?
Dalton - the weak and weepy Bond!
I've put my book in storage, but from what I remember, EON, via the film rights options owned by Saltzman, were able to develop movies of all the Fleming books except CR, TB, the book version of TSWLM and I believe, MR. The MR film option was never used and expired and reverted back to Fleming, then passed on to EON as part of the package. Also in their agreement, EON has the right to develop movies based on the Bond character even after exhausting the Fleming titles. As for McClory, I think the court recognized that he was responsible for creating the film version of the character, which was not exclusive but shared with Fleming, who then sold his rights to EON. If I remember, the first lawsuit gave McClory exclusive rights to the TB script, but a later lawsuit gave him expanded rights to the film character of Bond. Because it was not exclusive but considered a shared right, McClory could use Bond as a film character, which is why a competing Bond was always a threat for EON's box office.
Also from the Everything or Nothing documentary it's implied that when McClory was brought on as a producer for Thunderball then quickly dumped by EON once Thunderball was made. McClory supposedly thought he was there to stay, but I guess as far as they were concerned they got what they wanted from him and moved on. If the two didn't have such a case of tunnel vision this may have been resolved long ago.
Personally I say bring him in with a new Bond in a few years time, they've shot their bolt with Craig who is surely only good for 2 more movies.
Then again, if he can do 3 that might leave room for a Blofeld trilogy of sorts, and Logan was quoted as saying a real Bond movie has to have Blofeld.
Roger Moore 1927-2017