James Bond's greatest victory

From comingsoon.net:

The long-running battle between Kevin McClory and his estate with MGM and Danjaq, who own the rights to James Bond and related characters, is finally over after fifty years with MGM able to acquire the rights to the 007 franchise that had been held by McClory, who helped come up with the story for Thunderball with creator Ian Fleming. In the process of doing so, McClory has claimed that he created many of the iconic characters from the world of James Bond, presumably Blofeld and SPECTRE, who would appear in successive movies following that.

The lawsuits started flying in 1961 when McClory sued Fleming and received partial copyright to Thunderball that allowed him to remake it with Sean Connery in 1983 under the title Never Say Never Again. Neither MGM nor EON Productions have ever included that movie in any of the many James Bond box sets, considering it to take place outside of canon. Sony tried buying the rights from McClory and were promptly sued by MGM and McClory and his estate continued to be a problem for MGM and Danjaq over the years.

What could this mean for the future of the James Bond franchise? Well, for one thing, Danjaq's production division EON Productions could now theoretically introduce a new Ernst Stavro Blofeld or reintroduce SPECTRE after having created the crime organization "Quantum" for the Daniel Craig reboot Casino Royale.

No details of the settlement or the amount paid have been released.

Bond countdown: Thunderball (1965)

I'm hoping these will begin getting posted with more regularity again. Here's my take on Thunderball from 1965.

Bond countdown: From Russia With Love (1963)

Bond countdown: Dr. No (1962)

We're about 22 weeks away from the newest James Bond film, Skyfall, so I've decided to once again look back at the past Bond films leading up to the new one. I wanted to do something different this time so that you wouldn't feel like I was simply doing a repost of my past thoughts. So I've decided to use Voicethread, which allows you to create audio commentary to images. Simply press play on the presentation below and you'll hear my thoughts on anything and everything that I found to be notable on that particular Bond film. Since this is my first outing using Voicethread in this particular manner, my commentary may sound a little rough, but I'm hoping that I'll improve as I get more comfortable sharing my thoughts in this manner. Certainly I would love to hear anyone and everyone's thoughts on both the films and my opinions on them, so sound off in the comments below. And without further ado, here's my take on the first Bond film, Dr. No