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MGM's Purchase Of Two Important Bond Characters Is Big News For The Franchise.

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Here's why a 50-year lawsuit settled this week is important news for James Bond fans.
By: MattInRC

In Hollywood as in life, all things come around. For fans of James Bond, that time is now. On Friday, we learned that MGM had finally bought the rights to two key Bond baddies: Ernst Stavro Blofeld and SPECTRE, ending a nearly 50-year lawsuit between MGM and creator Kevin McClory. In 1958, he was the man who came up with the shadowy Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion organization, which was first featured in 1962's Dr. No. Its bald dictator arrived in 1963's From Russia With Love, with Blofeld later portrayed by the likes of Donald Pleasence and Max von Sydow. It was McClory, not Ian Fleming, who came up with these characters, giving Actor Sean Connery and others a first class antagonist to battle through several films. This left an indelible impression on moviegoers and filmmakers: from Darth Vader to the campy Doctor Evil in Austin Powers, we've continued to see stories featuring bad guys who actually stick around for several connected films, rather than succumb to our hero's blade during a pivotal third act.

Why is this news important? Because, for the first time in over 40 years, writers developing the current Bond 24 script can connect SPECTRE and Blofeld to the shadowy network which Daniel Craig's Bond met in Quantum of Solace. The fact that we can finally bookend the Craig stories to Connery's is like Batman getting back the rights to tell stories about the Joker again. Think of the spectacle that potentially lies before us: SPECTRE's story could be drawn out over several films, frustrating MI6 in Bond 24 while announcing itself ala Thanos in The Avengers, then developing SPECTRE and introducing Blofeld and his merry band of rogues in Bond 25, before an epic finale in Bond 26 that would dovetail nicely with the events of Dr. No.

There are other possibilities, including the denial of the Connery/George Lazenby Bonds and development of a completely new SPECTRE storyline, but we think the previous idea makes more sense. Re-writing canon doesn't respect past films, while dovetailing allows creative teams to fill in critical pieces of Bond's past while reminding audiences of the franchise's heritage and exposing a whole new generation of moviegoers to those classic films.

No matter course the studio takes, Bond fans are about to enter a very interesting time, and we won't have to wait for long. Bond 24 is slated for release on November 6, 2015.

Discuss this story with fellow SJF fans on Facebook. On Twitter, follow us at @SandwichJFilms, and follow author Matt Cummings at @mfc90125.

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