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) manuscript Fleming had produced for a novel, being only 113 pages long. Fleming found the book the easiest for him to write, and apologised to his editor at Jonathan Cape for the ease. "The Spy Who Loved Me" has been described by Fleming biographer Andrew Lycett as Fleming's "most sleazy and violent story ever", which may have been indicative of his state of mind at the time. Fleming borrowed from his surroundings, as he had done with all his writing up to that point, to include places he had seen. One such location was a motel in the Adirondacks in