Lost Moonraker script written by Ian Fleming discovered by London bookshop

Moonraker
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A newly discovered Moonraker screenplay was penned by 007ā€™s literary creator and jettisons a surprising number of the seriesā€™ iconic elements. A lost screenplay has been discovered that gives an insight into Ian Flemingā€™s cinematic vision for the character of James Bond. The 007 franchise has spawned 25 official films that have introduced many staples into the long-running series. However, if the discovered manuscript is anything to go by, Fleming ā€“ the author of the 007 novels ā€“ would have created a markedly different cinematic incarnation of the English superspy. The long-lost 150 page Moonraker script was unearthed by a couple of London bookshops specialising in rare tomes, and gives a fascinating glimpse into Flemingā€™s vision for the characterā€™s big screen debut. Penned in 1956, some six years before the release of the first EON Bond film, Dr No, Flemingā€™s Moonraker would have adapted his then most recently written novel. The details that have emerged reveal that there would have been no Moneypenny character, no gadgets from the Q Branch, nor would Bondā€™s boss have been codenamed ā€˜Mā€™. Whilst Flemingā€™s take seems more grounded than the version we eventually got in 1962ā€™s Dr No, the version of Moonraker that would make it to the screen in 1979 would be among Bondā€™s most far-fetched adventures. Jon Gilbert, a resident book expert at Harrington Rare Books, one of the shops that found the manuscript, has described it as ā€˜fascinatingā€™ although he also added that itā€™s ā€˜far too descriptive” and an experienced scriptwriter would have ā€˜focused more on that dialogue.ā€™ If nothing else, itā€™s an interesting Sliding Doors-style look at what might have been, but whether Flemingā€™s screen version of the character would have made it to 25 films in such rude health, weā€™ll never know. Indiewire ā€” Thank you for visiting! If youā€™d like to support our attempts to make a non-clickbaity movie website: Follow Film Stories on Twitter here, and on Facebook here. Buy our Film Stories and Film Stories Junior print magazines here. Become a Patron here.
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