The ‘unofficial’ James Bond film that met with lots of legal hurdles. And the comedy that sounded different – until The Sopranos came along…
Sean Connery had vowed he was never going to return as James Bond after 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever. Meanwhile, a man called Kevin McClory had agreed not to exercise his screen rights to the story of Thunderball until 1975. Yet the highest profile ‘unofficial’ Bond project would bring them both together, as Never Say Never Again did battle with the official 007 film Octopussy at the 1983 box office.
A different battle played out in 1999, as Robert De Niro took the plunge into comedy with Analyze This. It’d be an early hit in a year that was awash with them – yet the idea of a mob boss seeing a shrink, that seemed original when the film was conceived – was about to slam head-first into a brand new TV show…
