Production
Never Say Never Again had its origins in the early 1960s following the controversy over the 1961 Thunderball novel. Fleming, along with independent producer Kevin McClory and scriptwriter Jack Whittingham had worked together on a script for a potential Bond film, to be called Longitude 78 West, which was subsequently abandoned because of the costs involved. Fleming, "always reluctant to let a good idea lie idle", turned this into the novel Thunderball which did not credit either McClory or Whittingham; McClory then took Fleming to the High Court in London for breach of copyright and the matter was settled in 1963. After Eon Productions started producing the Bond films, they subsequently made a deal with McClory, who would produce Thunderball, and then not make any further version of the novel for a period of ten years following the release of the Eon-produced version in 1965.
In the mid-1970s McClory again started working on a project to bring a Thunderball adaptation to production and, with the working title Warhead, he brought writer Len Deighton together with Sean Connery to work on a script. The script ran into difficulties after accusations from Eon Productions that the project had gone beyond copyright restrictions, which confined McClory to a film based on the Thunderball novel only, and once again the project was deferred. Towards the end of the 1970s developments were reported on the project under the name James Bond of the Secret Service, but when producer Jack Schwartzman became involved and cleared a number of the legal issues that still surrounded the project he brought on board scriptwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr to work on the screenplay. Connery was unhappy with some aspects of the work and asked British television writers Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais to undertake re-writes, although they went uncredited for their efforts because of a restriction by the Writers Guild of America. The film underwent one final change in title: after Connery had finished filming Diamonds are Forever he had pledged that he would "never" play Bond again. Connery's wife, Micheline, suggested the title Never Say Never Again, referring to her husband's vow and the producers acknowledged her contribution by listing on the end credits "Title "Never Say Never Again" by: Micheline Connery". A final attempt by Fleming's trustees to block the film was made in the High Courts in London in the spring of 1983, but these were thrown out by the court and Never Say Never Again was permitted to proceed.
Read more about this topic: Never Say Never Again
Famous quotes containing the word production:
“The growing of food and the growing of children are both vital to the familys survival.... Who would dare make the judgment that holding your youngest baby on your lap is less important than weeding a few more yards in the maize field? Yet this is the judgment our society makes constantly. Production of autos, canned soup, advertising copy is important. Houseworkcleaning, feeding, and caringis unimportant.”
—Debbie Taylor (20th century)
“Perestroika basically is creating material incentives for the individual. Some of the comrades deny that, but I cant see it any other way. In that sense human nature kinda goes backwards. Its a step backwards. You have to realize the people werent quite ready for a socialist production system.”
—Gus Hall (b. 1910)
“... if the production of any commodity necessitates the sacrifice of human life, society should do without that commodity, but it can not do without that life.”
—Emma Goldman (18691940)