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 in film as Bond's alter ego, "a super-villain of the stature of Bond himself". Tensions between Mankiewicz and Guy Hamilton led to Richard Maibaum taking over scripting duties. Maibaum, who had worked on six Bond films previously, delivered his own draft based on Mankiewicz's work. Broccoli's stepson Michael G. Wilson researched solar power to create the MacGuffin of the "Solex Agitator". While "Live and Let Die" had borrowed heavily from the blaxploitation genre, "The Man with the Golden Gun" borrowed from the martial arts genre that was popular in the 1970s. On 6 November 1973 filming commenced at the RMS "Queen Elizabeth",