Never Say Never Again
Directed by Irvin KershnerS.P.E.C.T.R.E. agents under the command of Ernst Blofeld infiltrate a U.S. Air Force base situated in the U.K. and steal two Tomahawk cruise missiles. When N.A.T.O. is held ransom, the British re-activate their "00" Agents and send James Bond to recapture the warheads and kill Blofeld.
- LivewireAdminFebruary 3, 2026For the uninitiated, this movie (which is essentially a remake of 1965's Thunderball) only exists because of a decades long rights conflict between Ian Fleming, Albert R. Broccoli & Harry Saltzman, and Kevin McClory. The entire conflict stems from an early attempt, before the movies even existed, to create an original James Bond screenplay. In the late 1950's Fleming, McClory and Jack Whittingham (screenwriter) worked together to develop a Bond film story. Their project eventually evolved into the blueprint for Thunderball, and the collaboration created key Bond elements not present in Fleming’s novels, including: - Ernst Stavro Blofeld - SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) - The story structure and some action sequences that became Thunderball When the film project collapsed, Fleming, needing a new book, used the screenplay outline without McClory or Whittingham’s permission to write his 1961 novel Thunderball....which is where the legal trouble began. Kevin McClory sued Fleming for plagiarism and breach of contract. Kevin McClory received the film rights to Thunderball including the exclusive rights to Blofeld, SPECTRE and certain characters, scenes, and concepts. Fleming kept the literary rights to the Thunderball novel but had to acknowledge McClory’s contributions in future editions. Enter Broccoli & Saltzman: the official Bond producers. At the time of the settlement, Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had launched EON Productions and were releasing the early, official Bond films (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger). They needed Thunderball for the screen, but McClory now controlled it. The solution was an unusual partnership—EON made Thunderball (1965) with McClory as producer. Broccoli and Saltzman produced through EON; McClory received sole producer credit and a 10-year window after release before he could remake it independently. This cooperation was uneasy but successful—Thunderball became one of the highest-grossing Bond films ever. Now comes Never Say Never Again. Outside of the 10-year lock down, McClory was finally able to produce his own James Bond picture outside of Eon productions. Since he owned the rights to the story and characters, all of those returned however the classic EON Productions staples like the gun barrel sequence and the iconic Bond theme were missing. McClory also took advantage of the public feud between Broccoli and Sean Connery and was able to coax him back into the role as Bond after he famously stated he would never do it again (hence the title). Broccoli was furious; the film’s release created the only major “dueling Bonds” moment in history—competing with EON’s Octopussy released the same year. Unfortunately, as bad as NSNA was, Octopussy was equally as bad. The lasting impact of NSNA now is it gave Kim Basinger her first big movie role. She had done some TV and modeling work but this was definitely her big break. I also always forget Irvin Kershner directed this lol hard to make something as good as Empire Strikes Back again. McClory continued to claim ownership of broader Bond rights and attempted another remake in the late 1990s, working with Sony on a film called Warhead 2000 AD. He started making claims like he helped co-create Bond himself and that he owned rights to parts of other Bond stories, not just Thunderball. EON and MGM continually fought these claims in court until McClory’s death in 2006 when his estate finally sold the Thunderball, Blofeld, and SPECTRE rights to MGM and EON. This is what allowed SPECTRE and Blofeld to return in Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021) without legal obstacles for the first time in over 40 years. Albert Broccoli and Sean Connery supposedly made up years later which is the kind of happy ending I like to see. I'm thankful this wasn't received well because the Bond brand would not have been anywhere near as strong in McClory's hands.
- ርልዪረJanuary 28, 2025(◣_◢)=ε/̵͇̿̿/’̿’̿ ̿̿ NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN has slowly become a cult classic years after its release in 1983. It is truly an underrated classic to be sure. Sean Connery as a bit older James Bond never looked better. The story (Lorenzo Semple Jr.), locations and cinematography (Douglas Slocombe) are spot on. This is a much better Bond film from what we have been getting for ten years or so. SPECTRE looks far more believable in this film than in any of the other Bond films. Klaus Maria Brandauer as Largo is brilliant and is easily one of the best Bond villains ever. I highly recommend NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN directed by Jack Schwartzman. This is one of the best High Definition transfers I have ever seen.
- ZokkiieApril 4, 2026Gave it a shot, but yeah… it just didn’t really land for me. It’s got some bits that almost work, but the whole thing feels kinda slow and a bit awkward in places. There’s a vibe it’s going for, but it never really clicks, and it ends up feeling more tired than fun. A couple moments are decent, but not enough to carry it. Not awful or anything, just pretty meh overall.
Never Say Never Again Trivia
Never Say Never Again was released on October 7, 1983.
Never Say Never Again was directed by Irvin Kershner.
Never Say Never Again has a runtime of 2h 14m.
Never Say Never Again was produced by Jack Schwartzman.
S.P.E.C.T.R.E. agents under the command of Ernst Blofeld infiltrate a U.S. Air Force base situated in the U.K. and steal two Tomahawk cruise missiles. When N.A.T.O. is held ransom, the British re-activate their "00" Agents and send James Bond to recapture the warheads and kill Blofeld.
The key characters in Never Say Never Again are James Bond (Sean Connery), Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Max von Sydow).
Never Say Never Again is rated PG.
Never Say Never Again is an Action, Adventure, Thriller film.
Never Say Never Again has an audience rating of 3.7 out of 10.
Never Say Never Again had a budget of $36M.
Never Say Never Again has made $160M at the box office.