And He Sure Won’t Be on TV, Says Broccoli

Broadcasters attending January’s meeting of the National Association of Television Programming Executives, an annual marketplace for proposed syndicated TV shows, were surprised to find themselves offered a James Bond TV series — a weekly, one-hour show planning to produce 100 episodes over a four-year run, featuring new adventures of 007 in a contemporary, post-cold war setting. A bigger surprise to the Bond-wise was that the offer didn’t come from MGM/UA or Cubby Broccoli. But they obviously knew what was up; in the month prior to NATPE, several ads appeared in the trade papers warning that Broccoli and MGM are the only legal owners of Bond film and TV rights.

That’s not quite true, of course, and longtime Bond fans could have guessed that the origin of this TV series can be traced back to our old friend Kevin McClory, the largely unsuccessful producer who’s been a thorn in Broccoli’s side for more than 25 years. McClory controls the rights to one Ian Fleming novel, Thunderball. And yes, folks, he’s rented them out again.

For those who came in late: In 1959, McClory and Fleming collaborated on a Bond screenplay which McClory planned to produce. Fleming rather naively used that script as the basis for Thunderball. In the meantime, the film deal fell apart and when Thunderball was published McClory sued for copyright infringement. A 1963 settlement gave McClory and collaborator Jack Whittingham credit in all future editions of the book and, more importantly, awarded McClory the screen rights. Also in the meantime, Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli bought the rest of the Bond stories and launched their hugely successful film series. In the best interests of all concerned, McClory teamed up with Saltzman and Broccoli in 1965 to produce “Thunderball” as the fourth picture in the Bond series.

Ten years later, on Jan. 1, 1976, rights reverted to McClory and he promptly announced his intention to film the story again, calling it “James Bond of the Secret Service.” When Broccoli began to rumble threateningly, McClory tweaked Cubby’s nose by further announcing that he just might produce his own series of Bond movies since he owned two more stories written with Fleming (he later claimed to have 10 more). Broccoli maintained that any other stories were just various drafts of “Thunderball,” but McClory’s lawyers insisted he was legally entitled to use “Thunderball’s” James Bond character in a series if he wanted to.

However, McClory couldn’t raise the money for even one picture — by then retitled “Warhead” — and eventually licensed his rights to someone who could. Savvy producer Jack Schwartzman made the deals that eluded McClory and finally got the film produced and released by Warner Bros. as 1983’s “Never Say Never Again.”

Almost nine years later, McClory has once again leased out his 007, this time to Al Ruddy, producer of “The Godfather,” whose Ruddy/Morgan Productions was pre-selling the show at NATPE. Since then Ruddy has kept a pretty low profile, though he did tell TV Guide that he planned to start shooting the lavishly budgeted ($1.6 million per episode) series in September. He also noted that he would like to cast Pierce Brosnan as Bond (and the former Remington Steele, who lost the Bond film role to Timothy Dalton, may be available since NBC just passed on his “Running Wilde” pilot), and was not worried about Broccoli’s threats to sue.

Naturally Cubby has sued, claiming to hold the “sole and exclusive” TV rights to Bond. But Broccoli is not so sure of himself when it comes to other characters. Bond’s running antagonists, SPECTRE and its founder, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, have disappeared from the films because they originated in Thunderball and Broccoli wants to avoid any dispute that might end up strengthening McClory’s position. If Ruddy wins — and unless he folds and settles there’s no guarantee he won’t win — Blofeld and SPECTRE presumably would be free to reappear in the TV series. And Broccoli, quite rightly, fears that weekly TV adventures of 007 will be another blow to his already-troubled movies. It will be very interesting to see where this one goes.

This is one of several James Bond stories that originally appeared in FOR YOUR EYES ONLY #29 in June 1992