James Bond 007

This is a satirical spoof. Producer Charles K. Feldman officially obtained licensing for a James Bond film in 1960 but failed to come to an agreement with Eon Productions. Others were able to produce films with Eon Productions while Feldman retained rights to make 1 film, which they did (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball). Feldman decided he could not compete with films done with Eon Productions, so decided to produce a satire. Eon's You Only Live Twice had already begun production before Feldman's Casino Royale had. Feldman's Casino Royale unexpectedly grew in writing complexity, number of directors, big name stars, and size of budget as production continued. 6 Directors, 4 writers, 2 producers, 2 editors, 3 cinematographers, and 7 Bonds. Distributed by Columbia Pictures ended up with exclusive rights to the film. Despite all this, the film was rushed and beat Eon's You Only Live Twice to theaters by two months. Notably winning an academy award for the musical score and getting otherwise poor reviews and public reception. The 7 bonds gag is often assumed to refer to the every growing number of actors who have portrayed the character. However, at the time of the films release, Sean Connery was the only actor generally known to have portrayed Bond (the movie starring Barry Nelson was generally unknown) and there were no plans to replace him at the time. Always officially licensed and also non-canonical, it would eventual come to be in the ownership of MGM and thus corporately be accepted as part of the mainline Bond franchise.