16. Thunderball
The Thunderball story introduced Bond fans to the SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) organization. They’re bad guys. Eon Productions originally wanted to produce Fleming’s book Thunderball as the first movie, but there was a property right dispute. Kevin McClory claimed that Ian Fleming had written the book after collaborating on a Bond screenplay. McClory sued Fleming for plagiarism, citing that he ripped off plot points from the original script. It took two years for McClory and the studio to come to an agreement, but they did, making Thunderball the fourth movie. McClory would retain rights to the story and receive co-producer credits.