Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again.

[quoth_the_raven]

Whats your take on these two "Bond" movies?

[Ted Pikul]

Casino Royale is a mess pure & simple. Probably because it's actually 2 films spliced together. The Peter Sellers footage had to be augmented by completely new material after he had one of his periodic funny turns & stormed off set.

Never Say Never Again is a funny one. The cast (Klaus Maria Brandauer, Max Von Sydow, Barbara Carrera, Kim Basinger, Bernie Casey) is one of the best ever assembled for a Bond flick.

Unfortunately Connery was way too old to play Bond in 1983 & it shows. He actually looks older here than he does in films made 20 years later like LXG.

I still like it better than Thunderball though which probably puts me in a minority of one.

[Vizzor]

Why is that I`ve never heart of those movies?!

Wherever I read, they say that Casino Royale was the only Fleming`s book never made.

I am a big Bond fan , and those movies never appeared in any list.
I posted a thread saying why wouldn`t they make a movie with an old Connery-Bond, and someone recently answered that they`had already done that. And it was called Never say never again.
Would someone explain it to me?!!

[Ted Pikul]

Both of these films were made outside the auspices of EON who didn't own the rights to the material so they are therefore not listed as official Bond films.

Casino Royale is a spoof spy film in the mould of Austin Powers. The only relation it bears to the Fleming novel is the title which is why it is often said that the book has never been filmed.

Never Say Never Again is a virtual scene by scene remake of Thunderball. Thunderball was a a co-production of a screen treatment Fleming jointly wrote which meant that it could be made again via a loophole in the contract.

[Zing!]

Originally posted by Vizzor
...hey`had already done that. And it was called Never say never again.
Would someone explain it to me?!!

In 1959 Kevin McClory and another writer, Jack Whittingham, teamed up with Ian Fleming to write an original James Bond movie script called Thunderball that wasn't based on any of Fleming's already existing Bond novels. In 1961 McClory sued Fleming for writing a novel also titled Thunderball that followed almost exactly the screenplay they had written.

The 1963 settlement reportedly included the following:

* The right for McClory to make Thunderball into a film
* All future publications of Thunderball were to be represented as "based on a screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming."
* The rights to all aspects of Thunderball including a reported nine additional plot treatments and outlines, and to use the James Bond character in that movie.
* Ian Fleming retained the right to the James Bond character.
* Variety has reported that McClory retained the rights to SPECTRE, Blofeld, Blofeld's white cat, and the health clinic Bond stayed at during Thunderball.
* An October 1997 article in The Telegraph (London), reported that McClory claimed the rights to other Bond plots including: using hidden hydrofoils, any use of the Bahamas, any atomic bomb hijacking, and any type of plot involving the Sicilian mafia.

In 1965 McClory co-produced Thunderball with EON in return for agreeing not_ to remake the movie for the next ten years.

In 1976 McClory, along with Sean Connery and Len Deighton, penned an original Bond script which McClory planned to make into a movie called Warhead 8. EON sued to prevent him and the eventual outcome of the '70s litigation was McClory producing Never Say Never Again. MGM recently won a legal battle with Sony and now owns the rights to Never Say Never Again and Casino Royale, making them the sole owners of literally every James Bond film ever made.

Many have speculated that the constant legal battles with McClory took a toll on Fleming's health, and was one of the contributing factors to the heart attack that eventually killed him.

[bob]

Despite it's fantastic pedigree, I find Casino Royale literally unwatchable. 20 A/B movie actors convinced their being funny without a script? I'll just watch Cannonball Run, thanks.