Sean Connery’s Unexpected Return: The Curious Case of “Never Say Never Again”

Every few years the internet erupts in another poll asking, “Who’s the best James Bond?” Inevitably Sean Connery pops up, often tied with Daniel Craig, and for most casual fans the answer is a reflex – Connery is the very image of the suave 007 we all picture.

What many forget, however, is that the man most‑voted “best Bond” officially quit the role in 1971. He walked away, said he’d never wear the tuxedo again, and then – well – showed up 12 years later at age 53, front‑and‑center in a movie that the official series refuses to count.

That film is Never Say Never Again. It opened on October 7, 1983, in the U.S., and despite the iconic James Bond branding on the poster, it lives outside the Eon Productions canon. It’s the oddball that sits beside the 1967 spoof Casino Royale as the only two Bond pictures with a legal asterisk.

So why does a movie starring the original Bond, with the classic theme (albeit a different composer) and a full‑blown budget, get shunted to the sidelines? The answer lies in a decades‑long legal tangle that began long before Connery ever donned the mantle.

Back in the late‑1950s, a producer named Kevin McClory teamed up with Ian Fleming and screenwriter Jack Whittingham to develop a Bond screenplay that never materialised. Fleming later reworked that material into his 1961 novel Thunderball – but he didn’t credit McClory or Whittingham. Unsurprisingly, McClory sued, and the settlement in 1963 forced Fleming to acknowledge the original screen treatment. What McClory walked away with wasn’t the whole Bond franchise, just the rights to the specific “Thunderball” story.

The fallout from that settlement echoed for decades. In 1965 Eon Productions (the official Bond studio) produced Thunderball with Sean Connery, while McClory bided his time, eventually producing his own version of the same story in 1983. Because the rights only covered that one narrative, Warner Bros. could make a Bond movie – just not an “official” one.

When Warner Bros. released Never Say Never Again, they did it as a rival product, not under the familiar Eon banner. That meant no iconic gun‑barrel opening, no Monty Norman theme (the rights to those were owned by Eon), and even the supporting cast was entirely different. Max von Sydow took on Blofeld, Alec McCowen played a quirky version of Q called Algy, and Edward Fox portrayed a technocratic M, not the grizzled figure audiences knew.

Adding to the divergence, John Barry – the composer who gave Bond its signature sound – turned down the job out of loyalty to Eon. Michel Legrand stepped in, delivering a score that feels more like a 1980s adventure film than a classic spy thriller. Even the director, Irvin Kershner (fresh off The Empire Strikes Back), was a surprise choice that many fans still scratch their heads over.

But why would Connery, a man who’d publicly vowed never to play Bond again, sign on? The answer is a blend of personal and professional incentives. His wife, Micheline, is credited in the film’s opening for coining the title – a quirky nod that makes the opening credits feel almost like an inside joke. Connery was 52 when shooting began in September 1982, and the studio gave him a multimillion‑dollar fee, script approval, and casting input – perks far beyond a standard contract.

Connery later admitted he could have walked away with a huge paycheck and let the film sink, but once he got involved he found himself in the thick of every decision. He even described the production as a “maintenance report” – a term that hints at the constant troubleshooting he faced, from a broken wrist (sustained during a martial‑arts training session with a then‑unknown Steven Seagal) to script rewrites that left writers like Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais uncredited due to Guild rules.

Meanwhile, across town, Eon was rolling out its own Bond in 1983: Octopussy. That film, starring Roger Moore, hit theaters a few weeks earlier in the U.S. and carried the full weight of the official franchise – gun‑barrel, “James Bond Theme,” and all the familiar faces. The box‑office clash was inevitable: fans had two Bonds to choose from, each backed by a legitimate legal claim to the character.

In the end, Octopussy out‑grossed Never Say Never Again in the United States, though the latter performed respectably overseas, especially in Europe where Connery’s star power remained potent. Critics were split – some praised Connery’s polished return, while others dismissed the film as a cheap imitation of the Eon formula.

Today, the film occupies a strange niche. It’s listed on many “Bond” filmographies with a footnote, or omitted entirely in favor of the “official” 24‑film run. Yet for fans who love the 1960s‑era Connery charm, it offers a rare glimpse of the original Bond navigating a 1980s world, complete with oversized gadgets and a slightly more melodramatic plot.

So, is Never Say Never Again a Bond movie or a stand‑alone spy adventure? Legally, it’s the former – it uses the Bond name and characters under a limited rights agreement. Canonically, most fans and the franchise itself treat it as an outlier, a curious footnote that reminds us how tangled intellectual‑property battles can shape pop culture. And every time someone asks, “Who’s the best Bond?” you can now answer with a little more nuance: the original may have walked away, but he certainly never truly said never again.