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
Motifs in the James Bond film series be a "wink at the audience", with the suggestion that the violence was all a joke. This was shown in "Live and Let Die" when he threw the villain, Tee Hee, out of a train, removing his prosthetic arm in the process, Moore commented that he was "Just being disarming, darling". When Timothy Dalton took the role, the humour was downplayed, bringing the character more in line with that of the novels. The humour returned for the Brosnan films, with Bond admitting between kisses that he "always enjoyed studying a new tongue". Similarly, Moneypenny called Bond a "cunning linguist" after