Thunderball is a 1965 spy film and the fourth in the "James Bond" series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is an adaptation of the 1961 novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original story by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, and Fleming, and an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham. It was the third and final Bond film to be directed by Terence Young, with its screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins. The movie would have been the first of the Bond series if not for legal disputes over copyright.