The girls and guns, however, haven’t changed much. Below are a handful from 1962 to 2015, which when seen together chart the growth of the character we know and revere today. Early artwork was illustrated, and pictured the motifs to be expected from Bond - girls, guns and dinner jackets - which were later photographed in the Hollywood style de rigueur. (For perspective, the budget for Spectre, five decades later, is reported to exceed $300 million.) Promotional posters for the films have become collectables, originals often selling for tens of thousands of dollars.
It was a massive success the film grossed nearly 60 times over its $1.1 million budget, launching 007 into the cultural conscience of generations to come. No, starring an amateur bodybuilder from Ireland named Sean Connery. Their first was a low-budget adaptation of Fleming’s first novel, Dr. Instead of competing, they formed a partnership, founding Danjaq, LLC (named after their wives, Dana and Jacqueline) and Eon Productions, which have produced all 24 bond films to date. Not long after, he was approached by Cubby Broccoli, a Queens-born film producer living in London, who explained he wanted to purchase them for himself. (Spectre will be 148 minutes.) Pictured is the British cinema poster for the film, designed by Robert McGinnis (who also illustrated the poster for Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1961) and Frank McCarthy (The Dirty Dozen, 1967). In 1961, a Canadian film producer named Harry Saltzman read Ian Fleming’s 1959 spy novel Goldfinger, the seventh in the James Bond series, and decided to buy film rights to the character. At 140 minutes, it was the longest Bond film until Casino Royale (144 minutes) premiered in 2006.
