20 Things You Didn't Know About Dr. No
2. I'm A Member Of SPECTRE
When Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli started production on their first Bond film, litigation was raging in the British courts between Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory, and Jack Whittingham over the ownership of the 1961 novel, Thunderball and its characters, including the criminal organisation, SPECTRE.
Eager not to become embroiled in this, Eon Productions made an agreement with McClory to use SPECTRE in the Bond films until 1975 as, given the shaky Cold War relations of the time, they did not want to suggest that Soviet forces were the villains in the early Bond films.
Once that was agreed, they chose to adapt Dr. No, owing to the court battle over the rights to Thunderball and the greater expense of adapting that novel.
However, in the novel of Dr. No, the villain revealed to James Bond that he had developed an intricate system of interfering with U.S. test missiles launched from Cape Canaveral on behalf of the Russians. Therefore, Saltzman and Broccoli chose to transform No into a SPECTRE agent, making him the threatening first face of the evil organisation in the official film series.