That’s just so wrong.
But good point.
My copy was waiting on the door mat,when I got home this evening. I am off to Glasgow in the morning by plane from London,then in the evening getting a train to Newcastle via Edinburgh,then heading back to Kent via London by train on Sunday,so this would have been the perfect time to read it…
Only problem is, I’m traveling light,just one small bag,so can’t take a big hard back with me 
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Forgive me if I have overlooked a point already answered, but before I buy, is this Young Adult fiction or is it, for want of a better phrase, Adult Adult? Have only been paying fleeting attention although the completist in me will probably still buy it.
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According to one reviewer, likewise puzzled, it’s supposed to be fairly an adult entertainment.
I’m now on a train home from Newcastle, I did not get time at Gatwick airport to pop into w.h Smith and see if the airport edition was out already.
The only time I have bought a 007 airport edition was at Gatwick in 2013 ,where I bought SOLO on the way to cologne
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According to an interview by David Zaritsky having already read a proof of some description, very much adult.
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Well, the early reviews and a lot of the stuff coming out about this now have certainly piqued my interest. Even if the book doesn’t turn out great, I’m convinced it’ll still be an interesting experiment in the annals of the Bond literary franchise. On the surface it seems that this will be a radical reinvention of the Bond franchise in a lot of respects, but intriguingly it seems there’s a lot of Fleming material at play as well. And Kim Sherwood herself comes across as a massive Fleming fan.
All in all, looking forward to getting my copy.
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She’s been doing the rounds on the podcast circuit, giving long interviews. Here’s one I watched yesterday:
The full interview is well worth watching, but here are a few things that really grabbed my attention:
-Watching the Brosnan films on TV was her introduction to Bond, and she then read From Russia with Love.
-She’s a fan of both the books and the films and is very conscious of the different sensibilities of both (at one point she mentions the tonal difference between the first chapter of Goldfinger and the pre-title scene of the movie) and claims that her books tries to incorporate both sensibilities.
-She’s obviously given a lot of thought to her three new 00’s, particularly Joanna Harwood (incidentally, she wrote to the real Harwood to seek her blessing for using the name). I admittedly had some slight misgivings about Sherwood’s take on the 00 Section but hearing her describe Harwood’s character, and the contrast between the Hippocratic oath and the license to kill, was really intriguing.
-The ‘‘two kills to become a 00’’ rule is still very much in place, so in that sense, Sherwood is staying true to past canon(s).
-The Fleming estate gave her only two directives - 1) The book had to be set in the present-day, and 2) She had to introduce new 00 characters and expand the universe. It’s interesting to me that these came from the estate and weren’t creative decisions made solely by Sherwood. It shows that the estate is very much invested in reinventing the literary character and universe post-Horowitz.
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This is why I trust her with her story ideas. She feels like a real fan and she can truly be the person to blend the books and films together again. A future EON screenplay writer, along with Anthony Horowitz? I think there’s a chance! One last thing I found in another interview: Kim’s husband insisted that Felix Leiter be in the story. That was in The Bond Experience interview.
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Yeah, need to watch the Bond Experience interview too.
I really do hope EON does a deal with Horowitz to adapt his books as a loose trilogy - obviously making changes and updating them to the modern-day as was done with Fleming’s originals.
As for this 00 trilogy - I think a TV spin-off would be a better avenue for adapting them? But yeah, even if these particular books don’t get adapted, if her work is as good as it seems to be from all these interviews and previews, I wouldn’t mind her scripting an unrelated Bond film. She’s certainly given some deep thought to reinventing Bond and his universe.
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They don’t need to do a deal. They already own it.
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I can’t see straight adaptions happening of any continuation novel, let alone those which have been released so currently. I foresee Fleming elements continuing to be the backbone, mixed in with unused ideas from previous films. Some non Fleming content has been referenced, from Colonel Sun and the Gardner era, but it’s few and far between.
Not too sure about that though. Doesn’t EON own the rights only to the original Fleming novels and short stories?
Legally the literary Bond franchise and the cinematic franchise are distinct entities at this point, derived from the common base of Fleming’s work.
Obviously they’ve converged a few times over the decades, namely the Gardner and Benson novelizations. But for the most part they exist independent of each other.
I guess this is what makes an adaptation of a continuation novel tricky - EON has the exclusive rights to film a James Bond story. But they do not have the rights to film the James Bond stories not written by Fleming as they have to acquire those separately from the estate and the respective authors. Thus a fresh deal would probably be needed between IFP/the continuation author and EON to adapt those books.
If it’s Bond, Danjaq own it. Late 80’s into early 90’s Cubby was really careful about purchasing and licensing to make sure they’d never have to deal with another Kevin McClory situation. MGM in their first round “oh crap we’ve run out of money” wanted to sell off Bond rights they inherited from UA film by film which Eon was, understandably, strongly against. Their solution was to buy and trademark everything Bond so that everything with the character, past, present and future, would technically belong to them and anything with the character needed their permission first. It’s what caused the six year gap between LTK and Goldeneye.
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Pretty sure Ian Fleming Publications still operates completely independently of EON though.
But even if we take it than Danjaq owns the trademark on Bond and 007 I don’t see how owning the trademark automatically gives them ownership to the rights of the continuation novels that IFP commissioned after the original deal Fleming made to sell the film rights of his work. What it means is that EON/Danjaq are the only ones who could adapt those continuation novels because only they have the rights. So if IFP ever wants those continuation novels adapted then they have to sell the rights to EON.
Danjaq do own them already, admittedly they’ve only made use of the non-Fleming Bond once (Die Another Day) but it is all theirs, specifically so they don’t get another Kevin McClory given that took them over 50 years to fix.
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Do you mean to say that Danjaq owns Ian Fleming Publications?
I understand them owning the trademark on the character (I think you were the one who shared a screenshot from a Horowitz Bond novel’s copyright page that mentioned that ‘James Bond 007 is a trademark of Danjaq’) and I’d be interested to know how that impacts IFP and their usage of the character on the literary side. But unless Danjaq outright purchased all rights to Bond (not just the film & TV rights) as a character and the Ian Fleming estate had no more claim on the character, I don’t see how they’d own the rights to the continuation novels by default.
Not trying to argue for argument’s case. Genuienly curious to understand this better, as I’ve always believed that EON bought the film and TV rights to Fleming’s original work, but the Fleming estate still retained the literary rights to the character. Which is why you always hear about the estate/IFP commissioning continuation novels and not Danjaq or EON.
I’ve said it before, Jefferey Deaver told me in an interview that Eon always buys the rights to any new Bond novel, regardless if they have plans with it or not. Never say McClory again…
The only time they didn’t do that was with Higson’s Young Bond. Could imagine that Eon showed no interest in turning them into films, but IFP saw a chance (the Harry Potter way) and wanted to keep that option open. Could be that they made a deal that for this once, IFP was allowed to sell the movie rights to a third party (Miramax was it, I believe), but the movies still didn’t happen. But that’s speculation from my side.
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Danjaq bought them out right in the late 80’s or early 90’s as a way of getting round the hot potato that was separate ownership (Casino Royale, Thunderball and Saltzman’s half being sold to the studio) so now all things Bond are “used under license” then, as @stromberg said, they buy books rights to make sure that no-one could use any original character from the book in a rival production.
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So I came across this fascinating article about the history of the James Bond copyright. It goes into a lot of depth about the conflict between Kevin McClory and EON/Danjaq - including McClory’s claims in the 2000’s that the cinematic James Bond is a distinct character from the one Fleming created in the novels, derived from his work on the original Thunderball film script, and that EON was therefore infringing on his rights by using his character! (Didn’t know about this particular claim before…)
The only mention I could find about the film rights to the continuation novels here is a mention that Fleming apparently sold the film rights not just to all his novels (sans Casino Royale) to EON back in the early 60’s but also to future novels. Admittedly, its not clear whether the future novels meant only the ones he would write himself, or novels that could potentially be written by other authors as well, licensed by his estate. If its the latter, then it means that EON already owns the film rights to all subsequent James Bond continuation novels simply by virtue of their original deal with Fleming.
There wasn’t any mention of when and how the trademark to James Bond 007 was bought by Danjaq and certainly nothing about Danjaq owning the character in his entirety now, and IFP being a mere licensee who needs EON’s nod to publish new Bond novels.
But it does raise some interesting questions though. Like, if EON wants to adapt Double or Nothing, even assuming they already have the rights to do so by virtue of the original deal with Fleming, do they also have to make a separate deal with Kim Sherwood? Since she’s now a third-party who didn’t exist at the time of the original Fleming-EON rights deal. (Ditto for all other continuation authors).
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