Danjaq, LLC (formerly Danjaq S.A. and Danjaq Inc.) is the holding company responsible for the copyright and trademarks to the characters, elements, and other material related to James Bond on screen. It is currently owned and managed by the family of Albert R. Broccoli, the co-initiator of the popular film franchise. EON Productions, the production company responsible for producing the James Bond films, is a subsidiary company of Danjaq.
History
Founding and ownership
Danjaq S.A. was founded by Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman after the release of the first James Bond film Dr. No, in 1962, to ensure all future films in the series. The new company was to be called Danjaq, a combination of Broccoli and Saltzman's respective wives' names (Dana Broccoli and Jacqueline Saltzman).[1] In 1962, Danjaq began its association with United Artists.[2] In 1975, Saltzman was forced to sell his 50% share of Danjaq to United Artists due to personal financial difficulties resulting from a series of failed business interests.[3] In 1986, Albert and Dana Broccoli acquired United Artists' 50% stake in the company and so assumed complete control of Danjaq.[4] John Cork claims that in exchange for the sale, MGM/UA received an exclusive distribution deal with Danjaq that is far more lucrative than when the shares were originally owned by Broccoli and Saltzman.[5] Following the death of Albert Broccoli in 1996 and Dana Broccoli in 2004 control of Danjaq was passed to Michael G. Wilson.[6]
Copyright status
Although the trademarks for material related to the Bond films are held by Danjaq, the copyrights to the first 20 film properties are co-owned by Danjaq LLC and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios (the technical successor to subsidiary United Artists). The copyrights to Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre, are shared between Danjaq LLC, MGM, and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. Two Bond films have been made outside the control of Danjaq, the first was the 1967 film Casino Royale, with David Niven as Bond; the second was the 1983 film Never Say Never Again, a remake of Thunderball. Never Say Never Again was the result of a legal dispute involving Kevin McClory, one of the credited co-writers of the story used for the novel Thunderball, who was awarded the film rights to the novel in a 1963 settlement with Ian Fleming.
References
- ↑ "Interview with James Bond producers Barbara Broccoli & Hilary Saltzman". Retrieved on 4 January 2013.
- ↑ Judge McKeown (27 August 2001). Danjaq et al. v. Sony Corporation et al. pp. 9. United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Archived from the original on 4 October 2006. Retrieved on 27 November 2006. “in 1962... Danjaq teamed up with United Artists to produce Bond films.”
- ↑ Reuter. "Movie Producer Loses Lawsuit", 25 April 1978, p. 66.
- ↑ Danjaq, S.A. v. Pathe Communications Corporation, No. 91-55878. (Oct 6 1992) United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
- ↑ Cork, John (1996). "The Road to GoldenEye". Goldeneye 4.
- ↑ Danjaq LLC v. Sony Corp., 263 F.3d 942 (9th Cir. 2001)
External links
| This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Danjaq. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with James Bond Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
