Warhead 2000, A.D.

Warhead 2001

Producers: Spectre Associates

Written by: Kevin McClory

Illustration:
Wishful thinking by a German Dalton fan.

Undercover

McClory in Bond pic talks

By VARIETY STAFF, June 2, 1999

LONDON ? Producer Kevin McClory said he is in talks with Australian and German film companies to co-produce alternative James Bond 007 features, beginning with a reworking of Thunderball, to be shot largely in Australia.

McClory told Daily Variety that the two unnamed companies with which he is dealing are currently investigating the legalities of making Bond pics ? just as Sony did before it announced it would start its own series of Bond films.

Sony decided not to proceed with its Bond plans and agreed to a settlement with MGM, which has rights to the lucrative franchise. McClory refused to be party to the Sony/MGM deal (Daily Variety, March 30). McClory is reasserting his claim to 007 with the $65 million project, tentatively titled Warhead 2001.

McClory collaborated with Bond creator Ian Fleming and scribe Jack Whittingham on 10 Thunderball scripts in 1960; he secured rights to the scripts in a 1963 court case. United Artists released Thunderball in 1965 and it was remade 18 years later as Never Say Never Again.

In fall 1997, McClory licensed his rights to Sony in a deal intended to be the foundation of a Sony 007 franchise to rival that of MGM and Bond producer Danjaq.

McClory described Warhead 2001 as "not competing with the shoot-'em-ups which I believe the other Bonds have become." He said he will use the proceeds from the deal to finance two low-budget pics he has written and wants to direct.

McClory in Bond pic talks
McClory added that he is weighing options over whether to continue to pursue MGM in the courts for a share of the $2.75 billion that the 37-year-old Bond franchise has earned to date. He has been given until Aug. 1 to proceed.

Erich Boehm



Reuters/Variety, Thursday December 11, 1998, 8:11 AM EST

Of JAMES BOND-age


By Michael Fleming

The rivalry between MGM and Sony over the James Bond franchise thickens.

Dish hears that Sony topper John Calley is courting Sean Connery to star, and "Godzilla" tandem Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin to direct and produce, respectively. Though none of them has decided, grudges may motivate them to say yes. Connery did Never Say Never Again, the first remake of Thunderball, partly to stick it to producer Cubby Broccoli, whom he felt never paid him his worth. Though Sony bought Thunderball, Connery might like to reclaim his Bond identity and thwart the Broccoli-controlled Bond franchise again. And Emmerich and Devlin didn't have much fun working with MGM when the studio distributed their sleeper sci-fi hit "Stargate," because the duo felt the studio didn't get behind the film until it opened strongly.

Adding to the intrigue, Dish also hears that Pierce Brosnan, who's played Bond for the two most recent MGM pics, met Martin Scorsese at a social event and asked if he might consider doing a Bond turn. Though Scorsese made no commitment, he didn't say no and seemed receptive.

Any Sony film is predicated on that studio successfully fighting the whopping lawsuit MGM filed to protect its Bond franchise and challenge Sony's plan.

Sony was mum, but an MGM spokesman said: "Regardless of who Sony may claim to be in talks with, MGM has all rights to James Bond and will block in court any attempts by Sony to proceed with a James Bond film in any way."



Studios To Do Battle Over Bond
APO 10/14/97 12:32 AM

By JOHN HORN
AP Entertainment Writer

CULVER CITY, Calif. (AP) -- The Bond market has become unusually active in Hollywood.

In a direct challenge to show business's longest-running movie franchise, Columbia Pictures announced Monday it will make several James Bond movies. MGM, which believes it owns exclusive film rights to the dashing English spy, immediately cried foul and threatened legal action.

The Columbia films will be based on writings by the late Bond novelist Ian Fleming, writer-director Kevin McClory and producer Jack Whittingham, the studio said. Columbia said it plans to release its first Bond film in 1999. Casting and story details were not announced. McClory produced the Bond films Thunderball in 1965 and Never Say Never Again in 1983.

McClory said he, Whittingham and Fleming collaborated on several movie ideas in 1959-1960. "Although they (MGM) try to depict us as interlopers, we were in fact innovators," McClory said in an interview. He said Fleming's "Thunderball" was based on a movie idea he helped develop with the novelist.

"MGM's rights came after our rights," McClory said. "There is no doubt about this: We created our work with Fleming."

MGM, whose United Artists division has made 18 Bond films, said Columbia is "delusional" if it believes it can make any Bond movies. It will release its 18th Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, on Dec. 19.

The MGM films, made with producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli and his heirs, have worldwide theatrical grosses exceeding $3 billion, and none has lost money, MGM says. There have been five actors in the name role, the most recent being Pierce Brosnan.

Columbia Pictures said it is convinced it has a legal right to produce the Bond movies. "We've done due diligence and there's no doubt Kevin McClory has the rights to make a series of James Bond films and he has licensed those rights to Sony Pictures," said Peter Wilkes, a Sony Pictures spokesman.

MGM found the explanation ludicrous.

"Kevin McClory's claims of ownership of rights to James Bond have been disputed for over 10 years. Any claim that he can create a James Bond franchise is delusional," Frank Mancuso, MGM's chairman, said in a statement.

"We hope that Sony has not been duped by Mr. McClory's deception. Today, more than ever, we will vigorously pursue all means to protect this valued franchise that United Artists and the Broccoli family have nurtured for more than three decades," Mancuso said.

McClory's deal with Columbia was negotiated under the guidance of Sony Pictures President John Calley, who most recently ran United Artists.

"The new James Bond films emphasize our commitment to create motion picture franchises that serve as tentpoles for our release schedule and create business opportunities throughout the Sony family," Calley said in a statement.


Kevin Aims to Make Big Boom in Battle of Bonds
- The Sunday Independent [Dublin, Ireland] (Oct. 27, '96)
By Trevor Danker

Stirred by definitely not shaken, the Great Gatsby of our times, Kevin McClory, is finally about to fulfill his cinematic dream of making his own James Bond film. This will be the 2nd time he has produced. What's more, he says he's raised the money, has a script ready, and is about to sign up 007 Mark 2 and wants to make part of the film here early next year. It comes after years of legal tussles since McClory acquired right to Thunderball - his licence to pursue the Bond brand - in a court case in 1963.

All of which signals a forthcoming major multimillion dollar Battle of the Bonds between his company, Spectre Associates, and the other Bond-backers, United Artists and Eon Prods., who has produced 17 Bond movies. These include Pierce Brosnan's debut in GoldenEye, which has grossed a massive $345 million since its premiere in 1995. "We are ready to go," the debonair McClory told me last week as he shuffled around the West of Ireland. "The film will be called Warhead 2000 AD and and actor has been chosen to play Bond. But we won't announce it yet to keep the competition in the dark."

"No, it's not Sean Connery. He's too old for the part now. But he has said he would play the villain in a James Bond film if the price was right." He didn't, however, dismiss Tim Dalton as a possible Bond. He played the character in Licence to Kill and The Living Daylights.

"I haven't spoken to Pierce Brosnan for some time, so I don't know if he is aware of the new Bond. I am anxious to make part of the film in Ireland. The rest of it will be shot in the US, Australia, and the Caribbean. Raising money for a Bond film is never really a problem. A lot of people wondered where I disappeared to for the last couple of years. I was in Amsterdam writing the script."

Kevin McClory
Co-author of the 'Thunderball' screenplay who sued Ian Fleming

Published: 07 December 2006, in THE INDEPENDENT
Kevin O'Donovan McClory, screenwriter and film producer: born Dublin 8 June 1926; twice married (two sons, two daughters); died London 20 November 2006.

To devotees of James Bond history, the name Kevin McClory will be forever associated with Thunderball - the Ian Fleming novel, the court case surrounding it, and the film - and his myriad abortive attempts, countered by litigation, to launch an alternative James Bond film franchise.

Born in Dublin in 1926, Kevin O'Donovan McClory was a descendant of the literary Brontë family through his grandmother Alice McClory. His parents were both actors on the Irish stage, which fired Kevin's early desire to become an actor, but this ambition was hampered by severe dyslexia at school, and was finally blocked by a nervous stammer that was caused by a traumatic incident during the Second World War; in 1943, when serving in the Merchant Navy, Kevin McClory's ship was torpedoed while in the North Atlantic. He drifted over 700 miles in a lifeboat in freezing conditions with other crew members for 14 days, before being picked up off the coast of Ireland as one of the few remaining survivors.

In 1946, his desire still strong to be in show business and now with a greater appreciation of life, McClory talked his way into a £4-a-week job as a boom operator and "tea boy" at Shepperton Studios. Keen to be noticed, McClory worked in various capacities on classic British films including Anna Karenina (1948) and The Cockleshell Heroes (1955). It was during this early period at Shepperton that he formed a lifelong friendship with the director John Huston, another larger-than-life Irishman.

McClory was Huston's assistant on pictures like The African Queen (1951) and Moulin Rouge (1952), before graduating to Assistant Director on Huston's version of the Herman Melville classic Moby Dick (1956), starring Gregory Peck. This was McClory's stepping stone to becoming jack-of-all-trades on the mammoth production Around the World in 80 Days (1956), with him as the producer Mike Todd's assistant, as Assistant Producer and as Assistant Director.

McClory wanted more control over his own creative destiny and decided to write, produce and direct The Boy and the Bridge (1959). In the Bahamas, he met the wealthy Englishman Ivar Bryce, who formed Xanadu Productions with McClory to finance his first solo production. Bryce was a very close friend of the James Bond author Ian Fleming, and it wasn't long before, at Bryce's suggestion, McClory read several of Fleming's novels with a view to filming one of them.

The young and enthusiastic Irishman realised that these books had great potential. And great earning potential. However, McClory thought very much in visual terms, a hangover from his childhood dyslexia, and believed that he, Fleming and Bryce should collaborate on an original, more cinematic screenplay. To this triumvirate, he introduced Jack Whittingham, then ranked among the top 10 screenwriters in the UK, whose work had been received with great critical and public acclaim in Ealing Studios films including Mandy (1952) and The Divided Heart (1954).

Whittingham wrote a first-draft screenplay that eventually Ian Fleming would title Thunderball. The Bondwagon was about to start rolling, with the big bucks and the fame only a stone's throw away, or so McClory believed. Unfortunately for him, The Boy and the Bridge performed very badly at the box office and sank without a trace. Bryce and Fleming's initial enthusiasm for the young Irishman's handling the production of their first James Bond film project suddenly faded. Having expected the profits from The Boy and the Bridge to part-finance the Thunderball film, both Bryce and Fleming got cold feet and walked away from the project, leaving McClory high and dry.

When Ian Fleming sat at his typewriter at his Jamaican home, Goldeneye, in January 1961 to write his ninth Bond novel, he was in ill-health with heart trouble and felt very much a spent force. Writing to William Plomer, an old friend from his days with Naval Intelligence, who always proof-read and pre-edited his Bond novels, Fleming complained that he was

terribly stuck with James Bond. What was easy at 40 is very difficult at 50. I used to believe - sufficiently - in Bonds and blondes and bombs. Now the keys creak as I type and I fear the zest may have gone. Part of the trouble is having a wife and child. They knock the ruthlessness out of one. I shall definitely kill off Bond with my next book - better a poor bang than a rich whimper!

Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that a tired writer would turn to a convenient formed idea. Why let it go to waste? So Fleming based his ninth novel, Thunderball, on the collaborative screenplay, without any idea of including any credit for McClory's input and Whittingham's screen treatment. It would prove to be a costly error in judgement.

Before the publication of Thunderball on 27 March 1961 in London by Jonathan Cape, Kevin McClory obtained an advance proof copy of the novel. As soon as he realised that Fleming had plagiarised their collaborative screenplay, he sent a warning letter to the publishers that if they published the book as it stood he would take legal action. Receiving no answer, McClory sued. McClory was out to stop Jonathan Cape from representing Thunderball as the sole work of Fleming.

At a hearing, a judge decided that, since the accused had insufficient time to mount a defence, and publication of Thunderball was already so well advanced it couldn't be stopped, McClory and Whittingham's application would be refused. A little over two weeks after the failed book injunction, Ian Fleming suffered a major heart attack during the regular Tuesday-morning conference at The Sunday Times. He was rushed to the London Clinic, where he remained for a month.

The ensuing case that began on 20 November 1963 at the High Court in London was heavily covered in the media. Newspaper headlines screamed, "James Bond in a Thunderball clash!" Whittingham found it necessary to withdraw as co-plaintiff due to escalating costs, but, although in extreme ill-health, he returned loyally every day to support McClory. After nine days in court both Ivar Bryce and Ian Fleming decided to settle. McClory demanded £55,000.

In the final outcome, McClory was awarded £35,000 and his court costs paid (totalling £52,000), plus the film and television rights to all the existing Thunderball screen treatments. However, even though he had won the case, he was unhappy with the financial result and never paid his lawyer's costs. He also did nothing to help Whittingham meet his crippling court costs.

Fleming had two further serious heart attacks during the trial. On 12 August 1964, he suffered a final, fatal heart attack, aged 56, and died in the Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

Thunderball was eventually made into a film in 1965 by the producers Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli & Harry Saltzman, who "presented' the film for their company EON Productions. McClory was billed as producer on the film and Thunderball credited as being "Based on an original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham & Ian Fleming". The film grossed $141.2m worldwide. Whittingham died of a heart attack in Malta in 1973, his contribution to the cinematic legacy of James Bond all but forgotten and unrecognised.

In 1983 Kevin McClory acted as executive producer on Never Say Never Again, a remake of Thunderball, for which Sean Connery returned after 12 years to star as James Bond, going head-to-head with Roger Moore as Bond in Octopussy. The film grossed an estimated £137.5m worldwide.

One of McClory's closest friends during the late Fifties and Sixties was Jeremy Vaughn, who also knew Ian Fleming well as his neighbour in Jamaica. He told Robert Sellers, author of the upcoming The Battle for Bond, that

Kevin was a smooth operator, an attractive character, but not a particularly pleasant one, certainly compared to his brother, Desmond, who was one of the kindest people you could ever meet. If a friend was in trouble, Desmond would always be there. Kevin would just tell you to piss off, if you weren't any good to him.

He's been very cruel to a number of people over the years who thought they were his friends. The overdriving thing with Kevin was that he just wanted to be a celebrity, he wanted to be famous . . . He probably had some semi-professional technical interest in making a film, but he really wanted the glamour.

McClory continued to be involved in legal wrangles over the years. In the 1990s, he announced plans to make Warhead 2000 AD, another adaptation of the Thunderball story, which was to have been made by Sony, with Timothy Dalton in the lead role, but this was eventually scrapped.

"It was Kevin's burning ambition, these [Bond] movies," Vaughn said,

but I don't think he gave a damn who he walked over and what he did in order to get there. Kevin had a project in life and that project was Kevin McClory.

Graham Rye



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