James Bond in film Deighton together with Sean Connery to work on a script. The script ran into difficulties after accusations from Eon Productions that the project had gone beyond copyright restrictions, which confined McClory to a film based on the "Thunderball" novel only, and once again the project was deferred. Towards the end of the 1970s developments were reported on the project under the name "James Bond of the Secret Service", but then producer Jack Schwartzman became involved and cleared a number of the legal issues that still surrounded the project and licensed the rights from McClory. With Connery still committed to the
No. 1 of the Secret Service with those films. With the continued popularity of the James Bond films starring Roger Moore in the mid 1970s, talk of Sean Connery reprising his 007 role in the planned "James Bond of the Secret Service" and the delay in the production of Eon Productions’ "The Spy Who Loved Me", Shonteff thought he would return to the imitation James Bond field with his own film. The original title of "008 of the Secret Service" was replaced by "No. 1 of the Secret Service". Perhaps to avoid rights difficulties with producer James Ward, Shonteff replaced the name of "Charles Vine" with