Never Say Never Again is considered "unofficial" because it was not created by Eon Productions, the company behind the other James Bond films. Hence the absence of such Bond film iconography as the gun barrel opening, the distinctive title sequences, or the Monty Norman-composed James Bond theme. The story was originally developed by Ian Fleming in conjunction with film producer Kevin McClory as an original big-screen adventure until the creative partnership collapsed. Fleming then adapted the screenplay into his novel Thunderball without giving proper credit to McClory or Whittingham for their part in its conception. Subsequently, the movie rights to Thunderball were acquired by Eon along with the rest of Fleming's Bond catalogue (apart from Casino Royale, which had already been sold off to another producer) and it was intended to be the first entry in the Bond film series.



However, McClory subsequently sued for the rights to Thunderball and while Fleming ultimately retained the rights to his book with the provision that all future reprints must acknowledge Whittingham and McClory's contribution, McClory wound up with the film rights to Thunderball, including the character of Ernst Stavro Blofeld and his organization SPECTRE which were first introduced in the novel Thunderball in 1961. Unable to get his own Bond project off the ground in the mid-1960s, McClory wound up approaching Eon Productions and collaborated on the 1965 film version. As part of this deal, McClory was not allowed to attempt to film a rival Bond project for ten years.



In 1975, McClory announced his intention to mount an ambitious rival Bond project which was to star Sean connery, with whom McClory established a friendship back in 1965 during the filming of Thunderball. While legal wranglings with Eon Productions and difficulty in obtaining financing prevented McClory from getting his rival Bond project off the ground for several years, he finally found success when he teamed up with lawyer-turned film producer , which led to Never Say Never Again reaching screens in 1983. Because McClory was limited to only producing a film based on the original story of Thunderball, Never Say Never Again is technically a remake of the earlier Bond adventure, albeit with a slant to make it seem as if 007 is now an older, semi-retired agent. Edit