#James Bond Home EON Productions Celebrates Its 60th Anniversary

While the James Bond franchise will be celebrating its 60th anniversary next October, the official 007 Instagram account made it known that another special anniversary was being celebrated today – the 60th anniversary of the founding of EON Productions, the company who brought the Bond franchise to the screen a year after their formation. While fans eagerly await the latest and final installment of Daniel Craig’s iteration of the super spy, it is certainly something to celebrate considering how iconic company’s releases have become.

The official 007 account posted a montage of clips from all of the Bond movies from Dr No way back in 1962, all the way through to Daniel Craig’s penultimate outing, Spectre, asking, “Which Bond film do you enjoy watching over and over again?” While it would be expected for a lot of people to cite the original Sean Connery introduction to Bond as one of their favorites, or possibly one of the newer movies with their more current place in pop culture, it seems there is a lot of love out there for some of the often forgotten entries in the Bond saga.
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On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the only time George Lazenby appeared in the role, was mentioned by a few different users, and Daniel Craig’s first appearance as Bond in Casino Royale was another popular choice. There were even quite a few people who seemed to prefer two-time Bond Timothy Dalton’s harder edged take on the character.

The celebration of EON Productions is mostly only possible thanks to James Bond, just as, in a strange paradoxical way, James Bond is only going to be celebrating his own Diamond Anniversary on screen thanks to EON Productions being set up all those years ago. EON were started by filmmakers Albert R “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, who at the time of setting up the company were also looking to gain financial backing to make a movie based a book by author Ian Flemming. Broccoli had been interested in acquiring the Bond rights for a number of years but had been dissuaded from doing so by a former partner who didn’t believe the at character of Bond had anything to offer audiences. It was only when he created EON Productions with Saltzman, that the new partnership took a risk and acquired the rights to make Dr No.

With the 25th Bond movie,No Time To Die, ready to finally hit cinemas in a few months, it is safe to say that the gamble did indeed pay off for the pair. As Daniel Craig takes his bow, it is possible that we could be next year celebrating Bond’s 60th screen anniversary with the announcement of who will be taking over the role in future, and with a number of names currently in the running, from Tom Hardy, to Tom Hiddleton and Bridgerton star Rege-Jean Page, there is still a lot of speculating to be done before we finally find out who will be the next to utter those immortal words, “The name’s Bond, James Bond.” For now though, we raise a glass to sixty years of EON Productions, without who none of this would have been possible.

No Time To Die finally arrives in theaters on 30th September in the UK ahead of its 8th October release in the US.

Topics: James Bond