MGM Sued Over 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang'

The estate of Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond) says film studio MGM (headed by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian) is infringing on its copyright in the children’s book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Fleming’s estate filed suit in Manhattan federal court against MGM. The suit says MGM’s right to profit from the 1968 film about the magical car expired in 1992.

So what’s taken the Ian Fleming estate so long to file suit? It has been 12 years after all.

An MGM spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the studio hadn’t seen the suit.

To discuss this news visit this thread on CBn’s Forums.
Source: The Los Angeles Time

Kids Are Shaken, Not Stirred, at Meeting Sir Roger Moore

Written by Marie-France Vienne (a.k.a. “Lady Templer“)

CODENAME: Bancroft’s Prep School.

MISSION: Infiltrate the Knightsbridge home of 007 star Sir Roger Moore and hand over a £6,000 cheque for his chosen charity UNICEF.

Sixteen children from Bancroft’s Prep School in High Road, Woodford Green, were invited to tea with the former James Bond actor Sir Roger Moore at his suite of rooms in the Sheraton Park Hotel after raising £6,000 for UNICEF at their annual charity event.

Sir Roger, accompanied by wife Lady Kristina, answered questions about his life and career as a film star and revealed that his favourite Bond film was A View to a Kill. (Sir Roger had previously named The Spy Who Loved Me as his personal favourite.)

A boy and girl from each of the eight classes at the school were randomly chosen for the visit but one of the boys already knew something of the actor because his father had worked as a special effects technician on some of the movies.

Directing operations was the school’s headteacher David Horn. He said that despite there being more excitement from parents than from children to start with, they were all well acquainted with the work of Sir Roger by the time they visited him.

He said: “We did a bit of priming up beforehand. We found his website and got them to have a look at that and there have been quite a few of his movies on recently so we pointed them in that direction.”

To discuss this news visit this thread on the CBn Forums.
Donations to UNICEF may be made HERE.
Visit Sir Roger’s official website.

Bond Girl Rachel Grant Lands Role In Sci-Fi Series

Rachel Grant at Die Another Day Premier

Bond Girl Rachel Grant (Peaceful Fountains of Desire in Die Another Day) has landed a part in STARHYKE, a British Sci-Fi comedy scheduled for production in June 2004. In STARHYKE Rachel Grant will play Head of Security Wu Oof, a member of an aggressive alien race who fought amongst themselves for 3 millennia. Wu Oof was the Plutonian kick boxing champion for 7 years, accidentally killing 137 opponents in the ring, 6 during intermission.

She joins Bond veteran Jeremy Bulloch (best known as Boba Fett in the Star Wars films) who played Q’s assistant Smithers in For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy and was an HMS Ranger Crewman in The Spy Who Loved Me.

Jeremy Bulloch

In STARHYKE Jeremy Bulloch will play accident prone Chief Medical Officer Doctor Yul Stiker.

STARHYKE will be the first new British Sci-Fi series made in over 5 years, more importantly, this raunchy comedy will be like no other science fiction show ever seen on TV.

“This is a totally new style of science fiction, it will have the same effects as the big budget sci-fi greats, but is ultimately a comedy show in the same vein as such spoofs as Airplane or Police Squad. It’ll be a joke a minute, roller coaster ride of raunchy fun and frolics as the crew each develop their own personal way of adapting to a new environment.”

Producer Jonathan G Brown.

To learn more about the show and its cast visit STARHYKE.com.

You can discuss this article in this thread on the CBn forums.

Unused Audio Commentaries

When did it all go wrong? When did the relationship between supplier and consumer deteriorate? I think it may have been around the time that milk bars started selling bottled water, but it could have been as far back as when newsagents began putting their dirty magazines into plastic wrapping so that you couldn’t read them for the articles without purchasing them first. Whatever and whenever the moment was, that moment marked the decline of civilisation as we know it. Businesses, manufacturers, suppliers, they just don’t care about the consumers anymore. The desire to produce a quality product that meets or even exceeds the consumers’ demands is long gone. Now it’s all about the money, bleeding the customers dry and forcing them to make do with second-rate products.

One example of this is the James Bond DVDs. Sure, they were okay, but the could have been so much better. It’s great to have the films on DVD, but how about some decent extras? There are barely any deleted scenes or original interviews, and while some of the audio commentaries are quite good, others leave a lot of be desired. There really is no reason for that. There are plenty of deleted scenes and interviews gathering dust in old archives, aching to be cleaned up and transferred to DVD for the enjoyment of viewers. I know fans would love to see the deleted scene from Moonraker where Jaws goes undercover as an Elvis Impersonator, or the hear the Desmond Llewellyn interview where he made those slightly out-dated comments regarding black slavery. What’s even more startling than the absence of these extras is the fact that there are several original audio commentaries in existence in voiced by actors and directors that were recorded but never made their way onto the DVDs.

Below is a list of some the commentaries that we are missing out on.

Diamonds Are Forever (Mankewicz / Robinson)

Tom Mankewicz voices a full commentary, in which he offers an explanation for Blofeld’s abundance of hair and Bond’s lack of that ties into the plot, and gives detailed back story for each of the funeral parlour gangsters. Joe Robinson (Peter Franks) makes a brief cameo in the commentary, where he denies the rumour that he adiently pulled off Sean Connery’s hairpiece in the elevator fight scene, but confirms that, for authenticity purposes, he really did have the diamonds shoved up his, uh, yeah. Commentary may sag in the third quarter where, for filler, Mankewicz yawns and then wonders out loud why it is that the murderer is never Colonel Mustard with the candle in the kitchen.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (Lazenby / Hunt / Picker / Wilson)

The plan was for star George Lazenby, director Peter Hunt, former Untied Artists President David Picker, and Michael G. Wilson to each provide a separate solo commentary, with the four getting sliced together into one superb effort. Lazenby tells of how he and Hunt had a major run in on the set. Hunt claims that there was on animosity between himself and George Lazenby. Picker goes into detail explaining that despite the fact that On Her Majesty’s Secret Service wasn’t as successful and the Connery outings, it still did good business at the boxoffice. Wilson reveals “the film took a long time to make it’s money back”. Apparently the commentary was scraped due to confusion.

For Your Eyes Only (Glen / Moore)

This commentary by Roger Moore and director John Glen was canned due to technical reasons, which is a shame because Moore and Glen appear to have good chemistry, even giving a marvellous rendition of the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First” routine. But sadly, on many occasions throughout the commentary the audio doesn’t properly pick up what has been said, hence why it was unused. For example: Moore reveals that this is the only one of his Bond films where he didn’t sleep with one of the female co-stars in real life. Glen is quite startled by the revelation, and enquires about A View to a Kill. Roger mutters something about “that bird in the pre-credit scene”, but sadly the microphone doesn’t fully pick it up.

The Living Daylights (Brosnan)

Possibly the best commentary of the all, the commentary of The Living Daylights by Pierce Brosnan. For years fans have dismissed it as little more than a myth, an urban legend, but I can assure you that it does exist, deep within the MGM archives. Brosnan is tied to a chair and forced to watch the film that he was denied the opportunity to star in. As Dalton walks along the gunbarrel opening, we hear Brosnan proclaim “that should be me up there”. From then until midway though the Q scene, he gives a bitter recount of the events that prevented him from being in the film. But the real highlight comes in the second half, where Brosnan breaks down into tears as he comes to the realisation that the film is 50 times better than any of ones that he has starred in.

A plea to MGM: Please, please, include these audio commentaries on the 2005 DVD releases. It’s what the fans want.

Until next time,

Freemo

Comments, suggestions, ideas and my speeling mistakes can be sent to [email protected], or posted in the forums.

UK Charity Event; For Queen and Country 2

A themed James Bond party to raise money for the cancer charity “Macmillan Cancer Relief” Registered Charity: No. 261017

FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY 2 — A second night to remember, is to be held at Pages Bar, Westminster, London on Saturday 3rd July 2004.

The event will comprise of:

• Guest Appearances*
• The best Fancy Dress
• Fantastic prize draws
• Raffle
• Auction
• And copious amounts of alcohol

5pm till late!

All this and tickets are only £10!!!

Visit www.bond.non-official.com for more information.

Confirmed Guests all from The Spy Who Loved Me.

• Caroline Munro (Naomi)
• Shane Rimmer (Commander Carter, USS Wayne Captain)
• Valerie Leon (Hotel Receptionist)

To discuss this event visit this thread on the CBn forums.

IMDb Reports: "Brosnan Will Play Bond Again"

The website IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is today reporting that Pierce Brosnan has been “forgiven” for this recent public comments about the state of affairs inside the offices of Eon Productions, and that he is still the favorite to play James Bond in Bond 21. The full text of the IMDb report is below.

Irish superstar Pierce Brosnan will play suave superspy James Bond again – after patching up his feud with the Broccoli family. The Laws Of Attraction actor, 51, was thought to have lost the prestigious job after film executives deemed him too old to continue playing the sexy secret agent. But despite reports British hunks Clive Owen and Jude Law have been approached to replace him, insiders say Pierce – who had publicly slammed the Broccoli’s for delaying the project – is still their number one choice for Bond. A source says Barbara Broccoli told employees she had forgiven Brosnan’s recent outbursts, as they didn’t compare to the friction between her father Cubby and original Bond Sean Connery. Broccoli reportedly said, “If you knew what my father went through with Sean Connery, that’s nothing.”

Two weeks ago CBn reported that Brosnan had suddenly curtailed his public attacks on Eon [Brosnan Tempers Rhetoric in Recent T.V. Appearances] and offered speculation that this unfolding drama may have taken a turn. Is this the turn?

Pierce fans should probably not pop their champagne corks just yet.

At the moment, IMDb is the only source reporting this news. While IMDb has been a good source on the MGM/Sony sale and other Bond related news, the accuracy of their Bond 21 news has been somewhat dubious. In the past IMDb has reported that pop star Kylie Minogue was tapped to play the female lead, and that nervous MGM execs had re-signed Pierce after angry fans threatened to boycott the film (this back in March).

CBn will attempt to confirm or deny this latest bit of Bond 21 intrigue.

Stay tuned.

To discuss this news visit this thread in the CBn Forums.
Thanks to CBn Forum members “mattbowyer” and “thuffner” for the news tip.

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