List of James Bond Allies in The Spy Who Loved Me - Production

Production

The Spy Who Loved Me in many ways was a pivotal film for the Bond franchise, and was plagued since its conception by many problems. The first was the departure of Bond producer Harry Saltzman, who was forced to sell his half of the Bond film franchise in 1975 for twenty million pounds. Saltzman had branched out into several other ventures of dubious promise and consequently was struggling through personal financial reversals unrelated to Bond. This was exacerbated by the twin personal tragedies of his wife's terminal cancer and many of the symptoms of clinical depression in himself.

Another troubling aspect to the production was the difficulty in obtaining a director. The producers approached Steven Spielberg, who was in post production of Jaws, but ultimately decided to wait to see 'how the fish picture turns out'. The first director attached to the film was Guy Hamilton, who directed the previous three Bond films as well as Goldfinger, but he left after being offered the opportunity to direct the 1978 film Superman (he was ultimately passed up for Richard Donner). Eon Productions would later turn to Lewis Gilbert, who had directed the earlier Bond film You Only Live Twice.

With a director finally secured, the next hurdle was finishing the script, which had gone through several revisions by numerous writers. The initial villain of the film was Ernst Stavro Blofeld; however Kevin McClory, who owned the film rights to Thunderball forced an injunction on Eon Productions against using the character of Blofeld, or his international criminal organisation, SPECTRE, which delayed production of the film further. The villain would later be changed from Blofeld to Stromberg so that the injunction would not interfere with the production. Christopher Wood was later brought in by Lewis Gilbert to complete the script. Although Fleming had requested no elements from his original book be used, the novel features two thugs named Sol Horror and Sluggsy Morent. Horror is described as having steel-capped teeth, while Sluggsy had a clear bald head. These characters would be the basis for the characters of Jaws and Sandor.

Since Ian Fleming only permitted Eon to use the name of his novel and not the actual novel, Fleming's name was moved for the first time from above the film's title to above "James Bond 007". His name reverted to the traditional location for Moonraker, the last Eon Bond film based on a Fleming novel before 2006's Casino Royale. However, the credit style first used in The Spy Who Loved Me has been used on all Eon Bond films since For Your Eyes Only, including Casino Royale.