Sam Mendes which began transmission in early 2013. In April 2016 he was named as the President of the Jury for the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. On 5 January 2010, news broke that Mendes was employed to direct the 23rd Eon Productions installment of the "James Bond" franchise. The film, "Skyfall", was subsequently released on 26 October 2012, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Bond films. Mendes had been employed as a consultant on the film when it was in pre-production, and had remained attached to the project during the financial troubles of MGM. The film was a major
James Bond in film the Eon series, there have been three additional productions with the character of James Bond: an American television adaptation, "Casino Royale" (1954), produced by CBS; a spoof, "Casino Royale" (1967), produced by Charles K. Feldman; and a remake of "Thunderball" entitled "Never Say Never Again" (1983), produced by Jack Schwartzman, who had obtained the rights to the film from McClory. In 1954 the American CBS television network paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($ in dollars) for the rights to turn his first novel, "Casino Royale", into a one-hour television adventure as part of the dramatic anthology series "Climax Mystery Theater", which