Reminder of a major Bond transition

Earlier today, the Eon Productions official James Bond feed on Twitter posted a reminder of a major transition in the long-running film series.

The tweet had a photo from 1988 of the start of production of Eon’s 16th Bond film. In the photo, Eon co-founder, Albert R. Broccoli, is holding a clapperboard. At the time the film was to have been called License Revoked:

Producer Cubby Broccoli on the first day of filming for LICENCE TO KILL, or as it was titled at the time, LICENCE REVOKED. This was the final Bond film produced by Cubby. pic.twitter.com/Pe61y5SA3H

— James Bond (@007) June 13, 2021

Richard Maibaum, a screenwriter who went back to the earliest days of the Eon series, had worked on the plot. But the Writers Guild of America went on strike.

Michael G. Wilson, who collaborated on the Eon Bond films of the 1980s, took over as lead screenwriter. In those days, the weekly print edition of Variety carried a chart of major movies in production. That listed only Wilson as the movie’s screenwriter. Eventually, after the WGA went back to work, the final credit, when the movie was released in 1989, was “Written by Michael G. Wilson and Richard Maibaum.”

The title later was changed to Licence (the English, rather than American, spelling) to Kill.

The movie would be the final Bond credits for Maibaum, director John Glen (who, in addition to his five directing credits had worked as editor and second unit director on three others) and title designer Maurice Binder.

Albert R. Broccoli chose Pierce Brosnan to play Bond in the 1990s, but passed on producing duties to Wilson and Barbara Broccoli. The Eon co-founder got a “presents” credit in GoldenEye.