<P> James Bond is a fictional character created by novelist Ian Fleming in 1953 . Bond is a British secret agent working for MI6 who also answers by his codename, 007 . He has been portrayed on film by actors Sean Connery, David Niven, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, in twenty - six productions . Only two films were not made by Eon Productions . Eon now holds the full adaptation rights to all of Fleming's Bond novels . </P> <P> In 1961 producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman joined forces to purchase the filming rights to Fleming's novels . They founded the production company Eon Productions and, with financial backing by United Artists, began working on Dr. No, which was directed by Terence Young and featured Connery as Bond . Following Dr. No's release in 1962, Broccoli and Saltzman created the holding company Danjaq to ensure future productions in the James Bond film series . The series currently encompasses twenty - four films, with the most recent, Spectre, released in October 2015 . With a combined gross of nearly $7 billion to date, the films produced by Eon constitute the Fourth - highest - grossing film series, behind the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and Wizarding World films . Accounting for the effects of inflation the Bond films have amassed over $14 billion at current prices . The films have won five Academy Awards: for Sound Effects (now Sound Editing) in Goldfinger (at the 37th Awards), to John Stears for Visual Effects in Thunderball (at the 38th Awards), to Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers for Sound Editing, and to Adele and Paul Epworth for Original Song in Skyfall (at the 85th Awards), and to Sam Smith and Jimmy Napes for Original Song in Spectre (at the 88th Awards). Additionally, several of the songs produced for the films have been nominated for Academy Awards for Original Song, including Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die", Carly Simon's "Nobody Does It Better" and Sheena Easton's "For Your Eyes Only". In 1982, Albert R. Broccoli received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award . </P> <P> When Broccoli and Saltzman bought the rights to existing and future Fleming titles, it did not include Casino Royale, which had already been sold to producer Gregory Ratoff, with the story having been adapted for television in 1954 . After Ratoff's death, the rights were passed on to Charles K. Feldman, who subsequently produced the satirical Bond spoof Casino Royale in 1967 . A legal case ensured that the film rights to the novel Thunderball were held by Kevin McClory as he, Fleming and scriptwriter Jack Whittingham had written a film script upon which the novel was based . Although Eon Productions and McClory joined forces to produce Thunderball, McClory still retained the rights to the story and adapted Thunderball into 1983's Never Say Never Again . The current distribution rights to both of those films are held by Metro - Goldwyn - Mayer, the studio which distributes Eon's regular series . </P>

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