| You Only Live Twice | |
|---|---|
&sq=&lang=&file=File:You_Only_Live_Twice_-_UK_cinema_poster.jpg) Theatrical release poster by Robert McGinnis and Frank McCarthy | |
| Directed by | Lewis Gilbert |
| Screenplay by | Roald Dahl |
| Additional story material by | |
| Based on | You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming |
| Produced by | Harry Saltzman Albert R. Broccoli |
| Starring | Sean Connery |
| Cinematography | Freddie Young |
| Edited by | Peter R. Hunt |
| Music by | John Barry |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 117 minutes |
| Countries | United Kingdom[1] United States[2] |
| Languages | English Japanese Russian |
| Budget | $9.5 million[3] |
| Box office | $111.6 million |
You Only Live Twice is a 1967 spy film and the fifth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is the first Bond film to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, who later directed the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me and the 1979 film Moonraker, both starring Roger Moore. The screenplay of You Only Live Twice was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name. It is the first James Bond film to discard most of Fleming's plot, using only a few characters and locations from the book as the background for an entirely new story.
In the film, Bond is dispatched to Japan after American and Soviet-crewed spacecraft vanish mysteriously in orbit, each nation blaming the other amidst the Cold War. Bond travels secretly to a remote Japanese island to find the perpetrators, and comes face-to-face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. The film reveals the appearance of Blofeld, who was previously unseen. SPECTRE is working for the government of an unnamed Asian power, implied to be the People's Republic of China, to provoke war between the superpowers.[4][5]
During the filming in Japan, it was announced that Sean Connery would retire from the role of Bond; however, after one film's absence, he returned in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever and later 1983's non-Eon Bond film Never Say Never Again. You Only Live Twice received positive reviews and grossed over $111 million (equivalent to $1 billion in 2023) in worldwide box office. However, it was the first Bond film to see a decline in box-office revenue, primarily owing to the oversaturation of the spy film genre from Bond imitators, including a competing Bond film, Casino Royale, from Columbia Pictures (1967). The Bond series continued with On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969, the first film without Sean Connery in the lead role.
- ^ "You Only Live Twice". Lumiere. European Audiovisual Observatory. Archived from the original on 21 September 2020. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
- ^ "You Only Live Twice (1967)". Archived from the original on 2 February 2021. Retrieved 2 February 2021.
- ^ Abrahams, Stephanie (October 2012). "The 300-Year-Old Title: "You Only Live Twice"". Time. Archived from the original on 10 August 2020. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
- ^ Black, Jeremy (2005). The Politics of James Bond: From Fleming's Novels to the Big Screen. University of Nebraska Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-8032-6240-9.
- ^ "You Only Live Twice". Britmovie.co.uk. Archived from the original on 29 May 2016. Retrieved 15 February 2011.