How MGM Nearly Replaced James Bond With a Rival Spy
In the 1990s, MGM considered shelving James Bond and launching a new spy series amid legal wrangles and waning interest. Discover what nearly changed the face of British cinema forever.
Few cinematic icons are as deeply woven into the fabric of British and global film as the world’s most famous secret agent. Yet, there was a time when the very studio behind his adventures seriously contemplated drawing the curtain on his exploits. The notion of a future without the familiar tuxedo and martini was not as far-fetched as it might seem today.
Studio Uncertainty and Legal Gridlock
Originally, United Artists handled the first dozen instalments of the celebrated series, but following a merger in the early 1980s, the responsibility shifted to a new partner. From that point, the studio became almost inseparable from the franchise, playing a pivotal role in every subsequent outing from the early eighties onwards. With the Broccoli family stepping back, the recently rebranded studio—now under a different corporate umbrella—has an even greater stake in the agent’s future. It’s rather astonishing, then, that there was once genuine talk of retiring the character altogether and seeking a replacement.
The longest hiatus between films occurred after Timothy Dalton’s tenure, before Pierce Brosnan took up the mantle. During this period, legal complications and contractual disputes brought production to a standstill. The impasse dragged on so long that the studio began to explore alternative options, including the possibility of acquiring the rights to a different set of espionage novels.
“At one point, MGM execs became irritated with the slow progress, and they optioned the Quiller spy series of novels and threatened to churn out a Quiller film series, just to prove they could,”
John Cork recounted in the book Nobody Does It Better. With no script, story, or director in place, and a reluctance to see Dalton fulfil his contractual third appearance, the search for alternatives became more than idle speculation.
Changing Tastes and Market Research
Jeff Kleeman, instrumental in the eventual revival of the franchise, noted that the character’s relevance among younger audiences had faded. When a new chairman took the helm in 1993, he commissioned a marketing survey to gauge public sentiment. The findings were less than encouraging.
“What the marketing survey revealed that was because it had been over a decade since there had been a Bond movie that the audience cared about, the younger generation of filmgoers, the generation which studios are always seeking, was completely oblivious to Bond,”
Kleeman explained. Many either had no idea who the character was or dismissed him as a relic of their parents’ generation.
“Neither response being impressive to MGM,”
he added.
A Close Call for a Cinematic Legend
In the end, more measured voices prevailed. The arrival of Martin Campbell’s much-talked-about film in the mid-1990s breathed new life into the franchise, restoring its place in popular culture. The threats to replace the agent with a new spy saga were never realised, and the only full-length adaptation of Elleston Trevor’s Quiller novels remains the 1966 film The Quiller Memorandum, with George Segal in the lead role.