Gregory Ratoff James Bond Film Rights - ((hot))

In 1954, Ratoff optioned the film rights to Casino Royale from Fleming for a paltry (plus $6,000 for a full purchase later). Think about that. For less than the cost of a used car today, Ratoff briefly owned the future of pop culture.

Enter Gregory Ratoff. He saw something others missed: the cinematic potential of a cold, ruthless hero in a Savile Row suit.

Ratoff couldn’t sell it. Television was eating movies’ lunch. Spectacle was king—Biblical epics and westerns. A sophisticated, sexual, cynical spy thriller was box office poison. gregory ratoff james bond film rights

The Forgotten Fixer: How Gregory Ratoff Won (Then Lost) the First James Bond Film Rights

But the true origin story of Bond in cinema begins a decade earlier, with a flamboyant, Russian-born Hollywood director named Gregory Ratoff. In 1954, Ratoff optioned the film rights to

Desperate and running out of time, Ratoff did what any desperate producer would do: he sold the rights to the only person who’d listen.

“A spy who orders his eggs soft-boiled?” they scoffed. “A villain named Le Chiffre who cries blood?” Too weird. “The hero actually falls in love and loses?” Too downbeat. Enter Gregory Ratoff

If you’ve never heard the name, imagine a heavier-set, chain-smoking version of Peter Sellers. Ratoff was a character. A former actor and theatrical producer from St. Petersburg, he fled the Russian Revolution, landed in New York, and eventually became a reliable director in 1930s and 40s Hollywood. His credits include The Sound of Fury and the original The Man Who Understood Women .