You Only Live Twice (film) declined the offer to direct, but accepted after producer Albert R. Broccoli called him saying: "You can't give up this job. It's the largest audience in the world." Peter R. Hunt, who edited the first five Bond films, believed that Gilbert had been contracted by the producers for other work but they found they had to use him. Gilbert, producers Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, production designer Ken Adam and director of photography Freddie Young then went to Japan, spending three weeks searching for locations. SPECTRE's shore fortress headquarters was changed to an extinct volcano after the team learned that the
You Only Live Twice (film) a hiatus, he returned in 1971's "Diamonds Are Forever" and later 1983's non-Eon Bond film "Never Say Never Again". "You Only Live Twice" 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. "You Only Live Twice" was a great success, receiving positive reviews and grossing over $111 million in worldwide box office. An American NASA spacecraft is hijacked from orbit by an unidentified spaceship. The United States suspect it to be the work of the Soviets, but the