James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me since "Colonel Sun" nearly a decade earlier. Christopher Wood, himself a novelist, and who co-authored the screenplay with Richard Maibaum, was commissioned to write the book, which was given the title "James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me". Wood would also novelize the screenplay for the next Bond film, "Moonraker" in 1979. The novelization and the screenplay, although both written by Wood, are somewhat different. In the novelization SMERSH has been reactivated some time before the start of the novel, and is still after James Bond. Their part in the novelization begins during the "pre-title credits" sequence, in which Bond
James Bond in film up by Wilson and Maibaum. Before the pair could develop the script, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike and Maibaum was unable to continue writing, leaving Wilson to work on the script on his own. The script—initially called "Licence Revoked"—was written with Dalton's characterisation of Bond in mind; the obsession with which Bond pursues the drug lord villain Franz Sanchez on behalf of Bond's friend, the CIA/DEA agent Felix Leiter and his dead wife is seen as being because of Bond's own "brutally cut-short marriage". John Glen returned once again to direct, teaming up once more with