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
James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 based upon) Fleming's continuity, such is not the case with Pearson's book, along with the continuation novel "Colonel Sun", by Kingsley Amis, (to which Pearson refers). As those books occur in the same time as Fleming's Bond novels, their being canonical with Fleming's books is debatable, yet Pan Books, one British publisher of Bond novels, includes Pearson's book, "James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007", as an official series entry of their first paperback edition series. James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 James Bond: The Authorized Biography of 007 (laterJames Bond: The Authorised Biography) by John Pearson, is a