so McClory had EVERY right to SPECTRE and Blofeld.
But I just don't see how. All third party accounts and evidence over the years have suggested Witthingham and McClory's actual contribution was limited and that all the parts in question (SPECTRE and Blofeld, for instance) were part of Fleming's original short story. If it had been dragged out in court, there's little doubt Fleming would have one. He was simply too ill to bother and acquiesced.
Really, it was nothing more than piss-ant of a man trying to take advantage of an unfortunate situation and make a career for himself.. In fact, I'll even put it to the court that had Fleming been younger and of better health, McClory would've just stayed home--or gone back to holding the microphones.
In any case, the issue is really over the Thunderball property itself which, by default, includes SPECTRE. However, one could easily argue Blofeld is not conclusive.
He isn't actually called "Blofeld, nor had he been on film to that date.
All there was was a couple of hands and a cat. Hell, people can't even agree on who provided the voice. So, if EON were to go ahead and make him the King of Quantum, I don't think there'd be anything anyone could say about it. And, it's not as if McClory is going to come back from the afterlife.
I love Fleming's Bond novels, and have great respect for his inimitable style. However, I think your bash of McClory is unfair, and Fleming really did make a tremendous mistake in not acknowledging or compensating him for his contributions to what became the
Thunderball novel. The 1959-1960 effort in developing the
Thunderball screenplay as the first Bond film was a collaborative effort between Fleming, McClory, Whittingham and Cuneo. The
Thunderball script was shelved in favor of
Dr. No, and Fleming made a decision that was to haunt him for the rest of his sadly short life: publishing the book with no compensation or acknowedgement of McClory or Whittingham's contributions. If he had done the right thing and bought out McClory and Whittingham's rights to
Thunderball prior to publishing the novel he would have saved himself and EON much future grief. I do think McClory & Sony overreached in their final lawsuit by trying to sue for compensation for McClory having created "the cinematic Bond" and asking for payment from profits of the entire series. But, it should also be noted that the suit was dismissed on the grounds that he took too long to bring it to court, not that it had no merit.
Of course, EON still owns the celluloid of
Thunderball, and now MGM owns Never Say Never Again. It seems that there is ambiguity if the McClory estate still owns rights to the
Thunderball script and its contents. Sony settled with MGM (and in a twist worthy of Hollywood, ended up owning Bond's distribution rights via MGM) and so it appears McClory's renewed claim of rights to yet another remake of
Thunderball was never decided. It also seems that EON/MGM/Sony do not want to run the risk of opening a can of worms to resolve this ambiguity as they have repeatedly declined to ever use SPECTRE or Blofeld again, even in the recent video game version of From Russia With Love. As an epilogue, it should be noted that Sony's distro rights to Bond ended with
Quantum of Solace (see, on topic!) so who knows what the future holds.
Links of interest:
A good summary of events from Universal Exports.
Another summary of events.
McClory's side of the story (via the Internet Archive, as the site is now defunct).
"
The Battle for Bond" an excellent book on the creation of the Bond film series, sadly in printing limbo as evidently anything that even touches Thunderball is cursed (e.g. the newspaper strip).
Copies may still be available out there somewhere.
