James Bond in film of the funding for the Bond films, fell into financial difficulties following the box office failure of "Heaven's Gate" (1980), bringing uncertainty to the future of the funding. The situation was resolved in May 1981, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired United Artists. Following "For Your Eyes Only", Roger Moore had expressed a desire to stop playing James Bond. His original contract had been for three films, a requirement fulfilled with "The Spy Who Loved Me". Subsequent films had been negotiated on a film-by-film basis. The producers engaged in a semi-public quest for the next actor to play Bond, which would be for
The James Bond Dossier 'almost parodic scholarly dedication', Amis provides a ten-category ('Places', 'Girl', 'Villain's Project', etc.) reference guide (pp. 156–159) to the Bond novels and short stories. Typical of Amis's approach is where he suggests several implausibilities in Bond's capture by the eponymous villain in "Dr No" (1958). However, that 'Bond is temporarily helpless in his creator's grip', does not matter, because 'three of Mr Fleming's favourite situations are about to come up one after the other. Bond is to be wined and dined, lectured on the aesthetics of power, and finally tortured by his chief enemy'. Earlier, Amis had discussed the matter