James Bond: MGM and Sony
The James Bond series is extremely popular world wide. The author of the Bond series, Ian Flemming, sold the movies rights to Metro-Goldwym-Mayer over 40 years ago. Since then, MGM has had a monopoly on James Bond on the silver screen. In 1997, Sony tried to release its own Bond film. They claimed that they got material from one of Flemmings old business partners. This partner, Kevin McClory, claimed that he was responsible for lots of the material in the Bond series. This resulted in the release of Never Say Never Again. MGM claims that McClory did not have the rights to turn what he may have contributed, into a feature film, although they do admit he did have some limited rights. They also claimed the McClory had been trying to sell his James Bond around Hollywood for sev
eral years, and finally, Sony fell for it. In 1998, Sony filed a lawsuit against MGM, on terms of copyright infringement, breach of contract, and unfair competition. Sony was trying to weaken MGM and it was hoped the MGM would settle with Sony.
In 1999 MGM strongly won in court and Sony renounced any plans for further Bond films. Never Say Never Again, is considered an unofficial bond film. It is considered almost a direct remake of Thunderball. The traditional Bond opening credit sequence was not allowed to be used and neither was the name “Q”. These were both thought up with no influence from McClory. After the case with Sony, M
cClory still tried to sell his movie rights. MGM realized he did not renew his rights properly and swiped them from him. When Sony eventually bought MGM in 2004 all the lasting disputes were forgotten.
There are so many different aspects to this case as McClory has been involved with James Bond from the beginning and has been peddling around Hollywood for decades. The fact that Sony bought MGM and now has the rights anyways also complicated the case. To me it seems like McClory really didn’t have any business
selling James Bond. It was always Flemmings’ creativity that was responsible for Bond, McClory just helped turn it into a movie script. It seems like McClory was just trying to make a few extra bucks.
