James Bond in film of the funding for the Bond films, fell into financial difficulties following the box office failure of "Heaven's Gate" (1980), bringing uncertainty to the future of the funding. The situation was resolved in May 1981, when Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired United Artists. Following "For Your Eyes Only", Roger Moore had expressed a desire to stop playing James Bond. His original contract had been for three films, a requirement fulfilled with "The Spy Who Loved Me". Subsequent films had been negotiated on a film-by-film basis. The producers engaged in a semi-public quest for the next actor to play Bond, which would be for
The Spy Who Loved Me (novel) be no reprints or paperback version of the book, and for the British market no paperback version appeared until after Fleming's death. Because of the heightened sexual writing in the novel, it was banned in a number of countries. In the US the story was also published in "Stag" magazine, with the title changed to "Motel Nymph". Broadly, the critics did not welcome Fleming's experiment with the Bond formula; academic Christoph Linder has pointed out that "The Spy Who Loved Me" received the worst reception of all the Bond books. "The Daily Telegraph", for example, wrote "Oh Dear Oh Dear