Interview [Written]: Lorenzo Semple Jr.

A 1983 Starlog interview with screenwriter and TV writer Lorenzo Semple Jr whose credits include Papillon, The Parallax View, Three Days of the Condor, King Kong, Flash Gordon and the TV series “Batman”. This interview focuses on Semple’s work on the remake of the James Bond movie Thunderball:

Is the man who wrote Batman for television and Dino De Laurentiis’ productions of King Kong and Flash Gordon really the best choice to script Sean Connery’s long-awaited James Bond encore in Never Say Never Again?

“Sean wanted this to be the greatest film ever made, so it wouldn’t appear to be a rip- off for the money. I was extremely apprehensive about that idea, because I felt a Bond movie-especially one that’s essentially a remake-would never be the greatest film ever made,” says screenwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr., the Batman/Flash Gordon/King Kong veteran. “I tried to make it as sparkling as possible, but 1 think it would be a very bad idea to become super-artistic about this movie.”

One thing Semple need never fear -at least from disgruntled fantasy film fans-is the accusation of being an artist. “Perhaps I don’t take the movie business as seriously as I should,” he admits, “but I was looking to have some fun with this film, Having fun with a project is very important to me. Life is too short to do it any other way.”

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“The major change we made is that James Bond is in semi-retirement, and must force his way back into action. He’s the last person M wants involved, because he’s too dangerous and.they don’t do things like that any more. They want to get Bond out of the way. When he goes to the Bahamas, they think they’ve gotten rid of him. He in no way has the resources of the British Secret Service behind him. His only support comes from his friend, CIA agent Felix Leiter [played in the film by Bernie Casey]. At one point, we even had Leiter kicked out of the CIA and working in security for an oil company, but we had to change that back for legal reasons.

“The biggest area of contention concerned the geography. The same action which. previously occurred in the Bahamas would now take place elsewhere. I kept saying the story was more important than the location, but Jack and his lawyers were very nervous about moving the setting from the Bahamas.

“We were in a Catch-22 situation. We definitely owned this material, but if our movie wasn’t something like the Thunderball movie we would be in trouble-although, at the same time, we couldn’t use anything unique to that film. However, it really didn’t worry us, as long as we could get Sean. First, we would make it as different as possible. Then, if we had to pull it back, we hoped he would understand.”

For Part 1 of the interview, go here.

For Part 2, go here.

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