The James Bond brand looks as good at 50 as any of the actors who portray the international spy.
This year marks the golden anniversary of the first James Bond film, "Dr. No," which launched the world's second most lucractive movie franchise ever.
The films have grossed more than $5 billion since 1962, and with the upcoming film "Skyfall" set to premiere November 2012, the Bond franchise could earn another $600 million at the box office ("Quantum of Solace" earned $586 million in 2008).
But money alone can't measure the success of 007. The brand essentially created the secret agent film and TV genre, along with all of its parodies, spoofs and tributes. Without James Bond, the "Austin Powers" series probably wouldn't exist, either.
Much of the brand's success stems from its iconic sets and props, cars and girls, villains and good looking actors who play the hero. James Bond remains a character that fans everywhere can still obsess over, even in a post-Cold War world when spies have become a somewhat arcane movie theme.
To celebrate 50 years of the timeless secret agent films, an exhibit at The Barbican in London opened last week that features some of the most memorable Bond paraphernalia and reveals what sets 007 apart from other international spies. This inspires a look back at the brand and how it grew into the moneymaker it still is today.
Ian Fleming creates the character James Bond for his short story series in 1953.
Fleming's first Bond novel, "Casino Royale," hit the United Kingdom bookshelves in April 1953. Nearly 17,500 copies sold in the first two months, and the book received strong reviews in its first market. In a 1953 review, Hugh l'Anson Fausset of The Manchester Guardian said that the novel "was a first-rate thriller...with a breathtaking plot."
But the U.S. wasn't ready for Bond just yet. "Casino Royale" arrived in the States in 1954 and sold only 4,000 copies for the entire year. Fleming even tried to come up with a new title—"The Double-O Agent" and "The Deadly Gamble" were two of his suggestions—to make the book more marketable to Americans, but they still didn't want to read it.
The first attempt to turn "Casino Royale" into a TV show flops.
Though the book sold poorly in the U.S., in 1954 CBS decided to adapt "Casino Royale" into a TV episode that was part of its series Climax Mystery Theater. The network tried to familiarize James Bond with audiences by calling him "Jimmy" and giving him an American accent. The episode debuted in October 1954 starring Barry Nelson as Bond.
The episode aired without much notice (and was actually forgotten about until a film historian dug up a copy in 1981), but CBS approached Fleming again in 1960 and asked him to create 32 new episodes based on the James Bond character. Fleming agreed to do the project, but eventually lost interest and returned to producing more short stories and novels.
The first James Bond movie, "Dr. No," debuts in 1962.
American film producer Albert Broccoli was one of the few in Hollywood who saw potentinal creating movies based on James Bond—many studios saw the books as "too British" and sexualized. In 1961 he partnered with another producer, Harry Saltzman, and the two bought the rights to 007 novels from Ian Fleming.
They created Eon Productions and got started on producing "Dr. No," the first film to feature what would become the world's favorite international spy.
The film premiered October 5, 1962. Once again, James Bond was much more popular in the U.K., grossing $840,000 in just two weeks. But by the end of the year, "Dr. No" grossed $6 million internationally on a $1 million budget. Eon saw that they had franchise goldmine on their hands.
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