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
Motifs in the James Bond film series "What's he doing?" with "I think he's attempting re-entry, sir"; a line described by Barnes and Hearn as "sheer magnificence". The films also contain elements of visual humour: when Jaws is dropped into a shark pool in "The Spy Who Loved Me", it is Jaws who bites the shark. The following film, "Moonraker", sees Bond in a comic chase scene with a gondola that becomes a hovercraft, a continuation that Bond author Raymond Benson considered "so dumb that one wonders at what age group the film was really aimed." The music and sound effects are also used for comic effect