25 Mind-Blowing James Bond Facts You Need To Know
With a new Bond film released soon, let's look at the craziest facts about cinema's most famous spy.
The Aston Martin. The gadgets. The puns. "Shaken, not stirred."
After 24 films, 53 Bond girls, and $6.8 billion in the bank, what can be said about James Bond that hasn't been already said a thousand times?
Honestly? Quite a lot. There are tons of jaw-dropping facts about Bond that even the most diehard fan may have never known.
Did you know one of the villains was a Nazi in real life? Are you aware that some of the most ridiculous gadgets in the franchise are real? Did you know the iconic theme song had lyrics?
With only a few months to go before the 25th official Bond film is released, it seemed ideal to look at the iconic franchise that has been entertaining millions of people for nearly 60 years.
We are not just going to look at the movies, either. We are going to delve into the novels, the life of creator Ian Fleming, the inspiration for the characters, the spoofs, and the unofficial Bond movies that you NEVER heard of.
Leaving no stone unturned, let's cover every facet of the most famous spy in all of literature AND film.
25. Dr. No Was Originally VERY Different
Sometimes, it can be tricky to adapt certain elements from a novel into a movie. What works in a book may not necessarily translate onto the big screen. As a result, there were some changes made when EON studios adapted Dr. No.
In the novel, Bond battles a squid, the villain has pincers instead of hands, and Dr. No is killed when he is drowned in bat crap. (I swear I am not making that up). These elements were changed as the producers worried they would come across as silly.
However, there was another major change that the writers made from the source material. For the film adaptation, Dr. No was not going to be a criminal scientist. In the original script, he was going to be revealed as... a super-intelligent monkey.
When the producers learned this, they were gobsmacked. Obviously, they rejected this idea because a monkey cannot be a "merciless antagonist" to an elite spy.
It's safe to say that if Dr. No concluded with James Bond coming face-to-face with a simian mastermind, we would not be enjoying the franchise decades later.