Never Say Never Again -james Bond 007- May 2026

In the 1960s, Ian Fleming collaborated with screenwriters Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ivar Bryce to develop a film script. When that project fell through, Fleming turned the script into the novel Thunderball . McClory sued, winning the literary and film rights to the Thunderball story. The 1965 EON film Thunderball was only made because McClory allowed it, retaining the right to remake the film after ten years.

Connery, ever pragmatic, famously quipped: “I’d already said ‘never again’ so many times that my wife told me to shut up and take the money.” The title, Never Say Never Again , was a direct, self-deprecating jab at his own famous declaration. While EON was producing Octopussy with Roger Moore (a film that leaned into campy, circus-based action), Never Say Never Again went back to basics. It is, essentially, a modernized (for 1983) remake of Thunderball . Never Say Never Again -James Bond 007-

In 2013, after decades of litigation, the rights to Never Say Never Again reverted to MGM (the studio behind EON’s Bond). For the first time, the “rogue Bond” was officially allowed to sit alongside Dr. No and Skyfall in the home video box sets. Today, it is legally recognized as a valid part of the 007 filmography, albeit the black sheep of the family. For modern audiences raised on Daniel Craig’s brutal, emotional Bond, Never Say Never Again feels surprisingly prescient. Craig’s Bond in No Time to Die (2021) is also an aging warrior, weary of the game, facing irrelevance. Connery did it first, in a cheap wig, with a video-game-obsessed villain. In the 1960s, Ian Fleming collaborated with screenwriters

In the sprawling, martini-soaked history of cinema’s longest-running franchise, one film sits on a peculiar throne: a bastard child, a legal loophole, and a glorious act of cinematic rebellion. That film is Never Say Never Again . The 1965 EON film Thunderball was only made