In a new settlement deal, MGM now controls all the rights to the James Bond franchise. This is big news for fans who wanted to see the villainous organization SPECTRE included in the latest Bond films, but couldn’t (because of trademark, copyright and other legal hubbub).
“Interpretation over the intellectual property rights granted in the McClory/Fleming settlement resulted in law suits over Bond for decades” says law firm BakerHostetler, who represented McClory. “Most famously, a significant ruling in the London courts in 1983 held that McClory was allowed to produce James Bond films.“
The legal fight between MGM, Danjaq, LLC and the estate of Kevin McClory, went on for plus 50 years. McClory was instrumental in adapting Ian Fleming’s books into screenplay format so they could be produced as feature films. McClory had consistent legal battles with Fleming and later with UA, MGM and Eon Productions. This fight is mainly the reason there have been multiple Bonds over such a short period of time and why they seemed to go head to head. With two companies producing their own versions of a franchise, chaos and confusion was bound to ensue.
Now that all the BS is out of the way, fans and journalists are expecting to see SPECTRE and its infamous (and highly parodied) leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld start popping up as early as the next release (whether or not they’ll be included as a main element or a mere Easter egg remains to be seen).
Now if only Marvel could take back their franchises (in their entirety) and then the world would be in sync and maybe, just maybe, I’ll start to like X-Men again.
