13 replies to this topic

[Blue Eyes]

As I know it Kevin McLory now holds NO rights to any part of James Bond. That was what was determined last year in a legal case.

Yet people keep commenting that McLory is still a problem. Can anyone help out here?

[Mister Asterix]

Blue Eyes (21 Feb, 2002 10:56 p.m.):
Ah I see! I thought the whole thing had gone to court, and that all his rights were revoked (should I still use that word, few Americans around )

What does this word 'revoked' mean? You have complete confused my feeble American brain.

No, his rights weren't revoked. McClory's lawyers were trying to say he had more general Bond rights and the courts said no, he only had the rights he was told he had by the descisions made in the 60's. They took nothing away, only told McClory he didn't have anything else.

A by product of the whole mess was in Sony's settlement they sold MGM full rights to Casino Royale. Somehow that I don't understand the movie rights to CR had been split and MGM held half of the rights and Sony/Columbia held the other half. Now its all together under MGM.

Tangentially, I wonder if it's the fact that MGM owns the Casino Royale rights and (I think) not Eon, will keep Eon from making an official movie version of Casino Royale.

[Mister Asterix]

[quote]From spectreorganisation.com Statement: Chapter 2: The Origins of 'Spectre' and its Creation in the 'McClory Scripts'
'Spectre' first appears as a copyrighted protected expression in the 'McClory scripts' written in 1959 and progressed from there into the novel Thunderball (1961), which Ian Fleming had based on 'The McClory Scripts'.

[Blofeld's Cat]

Mister Asterix (22 Feb, 2002 03:24 p.m.):
It can be argued--though it has yet to be argued in court--that Eon also owns rights to the Blofeld character since they own the film rights to the books On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice which both feature Blofeld. I think Eon does not want to make this arguement in court because if they lose it could mean having to pull all of the SPECTRE and Blofeld related films (except Thunderball) from circulation.

I thought one of the aspects of the McLory/Eon deal to do TB, was that there was a 10 year period before Kevvy could do a remake (and therefore assume ownership of Blofeld/SPECTRE), and that is why YOLT and DAF could be made using Blofeld.

We, in our hearts, know that Baldy in FYEO was Blofeld, but as he was never referred to by name or that SPECTRE was involved, a case may have been too murky to execute.

I'd like to know why McLory hasn't done anything about the other treatments that he co-wrote with Fleming and Whittingham.

[scaramanga]

This just in! The title of the new McLory film is going to be Never Say Thunderball Again. But, seriously, how come McLory managed to get any claim on Blofeld and SPECTRE back in the 60s? Ian Fleming created the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld - the name Blofeld comes from one of Fleming's old Etonian pals.
As a matter of fact, and a little bit of trivia for you, my namesake Scaramanga was named after another person Fleming knew from Eton. He was Greek I think, and when Fleming asked later in life if he could appropriate his name for one of his characters, he replied "As long as he's not a villain!".

[Jim]

Mister Asterix (21 Feb, 2002 11:20 p.m.):

Tangentially, I wonder if it's the fact that MGM owns the Casino Royale rights and (I think) not Eon, will keep Eon from making an official movie version of Casino Royale.

Lawyers, eh?

Can't live with them.
Can't kill them.

[freemo]

Kevin McClory is like a fly, just buzzing around like a pest where he's not wanted, which is everywhere, and despite all the hand waving and fly spray, he just can't take a hint. Theres no real danger that he'll even come close to getting Bond rights, but just like a fly he buzzes around, making noise and annoying the (insert appropriate four letter word here) out of everyone.

[Mister Asterix]

scaramanga (22 Feb, 2002 01:17 p.m.):(edited)
...But, seriously, how come McLory managed to get any claim on Blofeld and SPECTRE back in the 60s?

Kevin McClory got the rights to Blofeld because the character first appeared in the screen treatments of Mr McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Ian Fleming. The novel Thunderball is based on these screen treatments. McClory owns the rights to these screen treatments. As I turn to the title page of Thunderball it reads:

THUNDERBALL

((BY))

IAN FLEMING

This story is based on a screen
treatment by K. McClary,
J. Whittingham and the author.

(At least in my copy of the book McClory's name is incorrectly spelled McClary. I wonder if this was on purpose?)

The 'This story is based on...' statement was added after McClory sued Fleming for using the treatments as the basis of the novel.

It can be argued--though it has yet to be argued in court--that Eon also owns rights to the Blofeld character since they own the film rights to the books On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice which both feature Blofeld. I think Eon does not want to make this arguement in court because if they lose it could mean having to pull all of the SPECTRE and Blofeld related films (except Thunderball) from circulation.

There is a very nice article on the new 007Forever where the article's author argues that Eon must have rights to Blofeld since a Blofeld-like character appears in teaser of For Your Eyes Only. The article claims that if Eon did not have rights for Blofeld that McClory would have been able to sue for Eon using Blofeld's likeness. I do not completely buy this articles arguement because while McClory can claim to have created the character of Blofeld*, it was Eon that created Blofeld's 'likeness'.

*McClory does claim to have created the character of Blofeld despite the fact that the Blofeld character apparently first appears in one of Fleming's drafts of the screen treatments and the name Blofeld apparently appears in Flemings journal before Mr. Fleming ever met Mr. McClory.

[rafterman]

man, what an annoyance, I beleive part of what the courts said is that McClory had waited too long to make any legal claims...

[freemo]

I can't belive I wasted my 300th post talking about Kevin McClory, woe is me.

[Blue Eyes]

Ah I see! I thought the whole thing had gone to court, and that all his rights were revoked (should I still use that word, few Americans around )

[Icephoenix]

That's exactly what i thought.

[Mister Asterix]

Kevin McClory still has the rights to remake Thunderball/Never Say Never Again or make a film based on any of the ten screen treatments he, Fleming, and Jack Whittingham together. He also still has the rights to the film versions of Blofeld and SPECTRE. McClory also still claims that nuclear blackmail plots are his part of his rights. None of these rights were taken from by the courts, the courts said that McClory did not have the right to do James Bond films not based on Thunderball or any of the McClory/Fleming/Whittingham screen treatment. Sony's plan was to make a movie series based on what they claimed was McClory's right to make original Bond movies as long as they weren't based on any of the books or movies that Eon own the film rights to. When it was obvious that the courts felt McClory only held the right to do essencially remake Thunderball, Sony backed out.

Summary: McClory still owns SPECTRE and Blofeld and the rights to remake Thunderball--again.

[Mister Asterix]

rafterman (22 Feb, 2002 04:02 p.m.):
man, what an annoyance, I beleive part of what the courts said is that McClory had waited too long to make any legal claims...

When the courts said McClory waited too long, they were mainly talking about McClory's claim that he was owed a percentage of all of the money that MGM/Eon/Danjaq made from the James Bond series over the years, because it was he, according to McClory, who developed the character for the screen. The court threw it out because so much time had passed and most all of the witnesses who could support or refute these pretences were dead.