Filming is now under way on the 25th entry in the James Bond film franchise, following a delay that saw one director exit and another join the fray.

This wasn't the first time, though, that behind-the-scenes wranglings have almost derailed the 007 movies. Once upon a time, a legal feud nearly succeeded where Goldfinger, Blofeld, Le Chiffre and, if you believe the rumours, Danny Boyle have all failed: Bond was almost killed off for good.

Related: James Bond 25 cast, plot, release date and everything you need to know



The summer of 1989 saw the release of Licence to Kill. While Timothy Dalton's second outing as Bond wasn't as big a box office hit as his debut, 1987's The Living Daylights, it still scored over $156 million worldwide (on a budget of $32 million) despited a mixed critical response.

Pre-production work on the next Bond film began shortly afterward in May 1990 – this would have seen Dalton fulfil his original three-film contract to play 007, with a teaser poster advertising the still-untitled Bond 17 actually appearing at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

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[A poster for ’Bond 17’ with Timothy Dalton, at the Carlton Hotel in Cannes]

But from the off, change was afoot: by August, the Sunday Times was reporting that veteran Bond producer Albert R Broccoli had parted ways with writer Richard Maibaum, who'd contributed to the scripts of all but three Bond films, and director John Glen, who'd helmed the last five movies.

Bond 17, though, was still set for a late 1991 release – Dalton would later confirm in 2010 that a script had been completed and the creative team "were talking directors" when the project entered development hell, from which it wouldn't emerge for several years.

It was a legal dispute between Broccoli's company Danjaq, owner of the Bond film rights, and MGM, parent company of the series' distributor United Artists, that led to what's still the longest hiatus between films in the franchise's history. (Only the five-year gap between 2015's Spectre and next year's Bond 25 comes close.)

Sunset Boulevard / Getty Images

[Dalton with director John Glen on the set of Licence to Kill]

So what happened? Well, it's all a bit complicated, but here's our best attempt at unpacking the Danjaq/MGM conflict.

• Pathé Entertainment (unrelated to the French studio Pathé) bought up MGM/UA for $1.2 billion, merging the companies to create MGM-Pathé Communications.

• Pathé CEO Giancarlo Parretti planned to sell off the distribution rights of the studio's catalogue to finance the buyout. This included international broadcasting rights to the 007 library, at cut-rate prices.

• Danjaq weren't happy, lodging a lawsuit against Parretti on the basis that the licensing violated the Bond distribution agreements the company originally made with United Artists in 1962.



Countersuits were filed, and while the legal tussle surrounding the Bond rights was finally settled in December 1992, this back-and-forth delayed production past the point at which Dalton's original seven-year contract expired.

Dalton and Broccoli together in 1991 Ron Galella, Ltd. / Getty Images

"Because of the lawsuit, I was free of the contract," he told The Week in 2014.

"Mr Broccoli, who I really respected as a producer and as a friend, asked me what I was going to do when it was resolved. I said, 'Look, in all honesty, I don't think that I will continue.'

"He asked me for my support during that time, which of course, I gave him."

By this point, MGM-Pathé had gone bankrupt and the company had reverted back to being just plain old MGM, now with financial backing from a Crédit Lyonnais subsidiary.

In May 1993, MGM announced that a seventeenth James Bond film was back in active development, but by now the franchise was moving forward without a leading man.

Sunset Boulevard / Getty Images

With Cliffhanger writer Michael France hired to work on a script, Broccoli reached out to Dalton again, in hopes of convincing the actor to change his mind about quitting the series. He was apparently successful – in August 1993, Dalton told the Daily Mail that production on Bond 17 was expected to begin in early 1994.

Then the new deal hit a snag: Dalton was keen to film just one more Bond film to cap off his run. Broccoli, though, was keen to ensure a continuity of lead actor after such a long gap between movies.

Again for The Week in 2014, Dalton recalled: "[Broccoli] said, quite rightly, 'Look, Tim. You can't do one. There's no way, after a five-year gap between movies, that you can come back and just do one.'"

Unwilling to sign up for "four or five" more films, Dalton "respectfully declined" to continue in the Bond role and he officially resigned in April 1994.



Keith Hamshere/Getty Images

[GoldenEye, the 17th Bond film, would eventually star Pierce Brosnan as 007]

France's screenplay for what would become GoldenEye had been complete since January, but now, Broccoli and company were tasked with finding a new actor to play James Bond for the first time in eight years.

Looking back to that period, their attentions focused once again on Pierce Brosnan, who'd actually been cast as Bond for The Living Daylights ahead of Dalton – even shooting the opening gun-barrel sequence – before a last-minute contract extension on his TV series Remington Steele meant he had to pull out.

With legal complications of all kinds now dealt with, Brosnan signed up and was introduced to the public as the new 007 in June 1994.

GoldenEye was a critical and box office success when it was finally released to cinemas in November 1995, with most of the enthusiastic cinema-goers who flocked to see Bond's latest outing clueless as to how close their hero came to extinction.

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