Never Say Never Again is a spy film from 1983 directed by Irvin Kershner. The film is based on the James Bond novel Thunderball from 1961 by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Fleming. The novel had previously been adapted into a film in 1965 with the same name. Never Say Never Again is the second and most recent James Bond film not produced by Eon Productions (the usual producer of the Bond series) but instead by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm, and distributed by Warner Bros. The film was produced by Kevin McClory, one of the original authors of the Thunderball story. McClory had retained the filming rights to the novel after a long legal battle dating back to the 1960s.