With that film, Sony will begin reaping the riches from Hollywood's longest-running franchise, which has amassed $3.7 billion in global ticket sales, most from overseas. The last film, 2002's "Die Another Day" grossed $430 million worldwide, the most for any Bond installment.
Since "Dr. No's" debut in 1962, profits have gushed in from virtually all of the Bond films produced by the Broccoli family, regardless of whether Agent 007 was played by such stalwarts as Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Brosnan or the less memorable Timothy Dalton and George Lazenby.
Each time a new film hits theaters, old Bond movies generate millions of dollars in DVD sales and TV airings. The Broccoli family takes home 20% to 35% of the profit on each film. (Because of murky underlying rights, the only two Bond films not produced by the Broccoli family were Columbia Pictures' 1967 spoof of "Casino Royale" and Warner Bros.' 1983 release "Never Say Never Again.")
The gold Cubby Broccoli struck came amid a chorus of naysayers, including author Fleming, who believed that Bond had limited cinema appeal. But Broccoli was an accomplished salesman of big action movies, having honed his skills early in life hawking caskets and jewelry.
The son of Italian immigrant farmers, Broccoli moved to Hollywood in the 1930s. Before long, he was making large-scale adventure films for Columbia Pictures and became one of Hollywood's most colorful impresarios, trucking snow to his Beverly Hills mansion for a Christmas party.
A fan of Fleming's books, Broccoli always wanted to make Bond films but didn't own the rights. A mutual friend introduced him to the man who did, Harry Saltzman, who was broke with 28 days left before his option expired. The two paid a visit to United Artists Chairman Arthur Krim's Manhattan office.
Krim was no stranger to the Bond character. The UA chief had been introduced to the spy novels by his friend, President John F. Kennedy, whose enthusiasm for the books helped popularize them.
Krim adhered to the philosophy of UA dating back to its founding in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mark Pickford and director D. W. Griffith. They believed that filmmakers made better creative decisions than executives.
UA's then-production chief David Picker was in the room when Broccoli and Saltzman asked for money to bring Bond to the screen. "They came in and said 'We control James Bond,' " said Picker, a Fleming fan who earlier had tried to land the movie rights. "We wouldn't let them out of the room before we had a deal."
