The film ends with a title card stating: "James Bond will return in For Your Eyes Only."
       According to United Artists production notes from the AMPAS library files, only the title of writer Ian Fleming’s novel was used for the Bond film, according to the writer’s wishes before his death. The original novel did not follow the normal format of the Bond adventures. Instead, the story revolves around Bond checking into a motel with a flat tire in the last third of the book and rescuing the main character, Vivienne Michel, whose stay at a motel is threatened by gangsters planning to burn it down for the insurance money. Fleming was never pleased with the novel, as it was the weakest of his Bond adventures. The film’s producers got Fleming’s permission to revamp the story before filming could begin. Over three years, an original screenplay was developed by producer Albert R. Broccoli and screenwriters Christopher Wood and Richard Maibaum. Fleming never warmed to the original casting choice of Sean Connery and thought Roger Moore was a better fit to play the sophisticated agent. As stated in a 5 Dec 1976LAT article, Broccoli approached “well-known actresses Catherine Deneuve, Marthe Keller, and Dominique Sanda” to play the Bond girl but all passed on the role when fees involving points or a percentage of the profits could not be agreed upon. Broccoli summed his choice to pick unknowns when casting Bond girls: “…Remember this: The money I’ve saved by not using a well-known actress I spent on that marvelous ski stunt.”
       In an Apr 1977 After Dark article, novelist Anthony Burgess stated that he worked on a script of the film “while on a lecture tour of American colleges” in spring 1976, although Burgess is not credited in the final film. He also mentioned the possibility of actor Orson Welles playing the arch villain and “the finale set in the architecturally spectacular Sydney Opera House in Australia.”
       A 21 Jul 1976 Box news item mentioned that principal photography on The Spy Who Loved Me would begin 31 Aug at Pinewood Studios in London.
       The UA production notes described that the film required a five-month shooting schedule in the following locations: “London’s Pinewood Studios, Sardinia, Egypt, the Bahamas, Baffin Island, Scotland and Switzerland.” The Faslane Submarine Base on the Southwest coast of Scotland near Glasgow was the location used to film the “Royal Navy top-secret base, where the Polaris nuclear missile submarines were located.” A team of divers and naval experts spent five months in Nassau, Bermuda, shooting underwater sequences. The town of Pangnirtung, Baffin Island, twenty miles north of the Arctic Circle, was the site of Bond’s chase scene on skis. Additionally, a 5 Dec 1976 LAT Calendar section article revealed that the ski chase stunt through the Austrian Alps in the beginning of the film was “actually performed by 37-year-old Californian Rick Sylvester, a space ski expert. He did the stunt, which was tracked by three cameras, on Baffin Island.”
       The UA production notes went on to say that the cliffside roads on the Italian island of Sardinia were used in an action sequence in which a Kawasaki 900 motorcycle fitted with a teleguided explosive sidecar pursued Bond driving a Lotus Esprit.
       To accommodate the interiors of the supertanker, which kidnaps three nuclear submarines, the world’s largest film stage at the time was built at Pinewood Studios. Its dimensions were 160 feet x 374 feet x 53 feet. A special Lotus “Spirit” car that transformed into a miniature submarine and was outfitted with new gadgetry, replaced the Aston-Martin spy car most commonly seen in Bond films. The submersible car was transformed for underwater use by Florida-based Perry Oceanographics and could reach a speed of 7.2 knots and a depth of 45 feet.
       According to a 5 Dec 1976 a LAT Calendar section article, the film’s production office had to relocate when it was kicked out of the Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo, Egypt, when a last-minute Arab summit meeting took over most of the accommodations available, and set up quarters in the open lobby of the neighboring Sheraton.
       An 18 Dec 1975 DV article reported James Bond feature producer Harry Saltzman dissolved his partnership in production company Danjaq S.A. with Albert R. Broccoli and sold his interest to the distribution company, United Artists Corp. (UA), for an undisclosed sum. While several years of conflict between the two producers caused the split, the deal was lucrative for UA due to the ongoing popularity of the Bond series.
       As stated in the 18 Dec 1975 HR, Albert R. Broccoli would continue as the “sole producer of all future James Bond motion pictures. “The Ian Fleming Estate granted Broccoli the rights to all future Bond stories. However, in a 25 Jun 1976 HR news item, producer Kevin McClory filed a lawsuit in the London courts to prevent the start of filming The Spy Who Loved Me, scheduled for early Aug. Also, a 25 Jun 1976 DV article reported that producer Kevin McClory filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement by producer Broccoli and others, violating his rights to use the Bond character.
       The backstory to McClory’s lawsuit appeared in a 28 May 1976 DV article in which it stated McClory had entered into an agreement with Ian Fleming, author of the Bond series, in the 1950s to film the feature James Bond of the Secret Service, as well as other Bond projects well before the first Broccoli-Salzman films were made. However, once Danjaq S.A., i.e. Broccoli and Salzman, began producing Bond movies, McClory signed an agreement with Danjaq S.A. in 1965, where the film and TV rights of Thunderball (1965, see entry) would revert back to McClory ten years after the theatrical film’s U.S. release. McClory would also regain his right to produce other Bond films after 1 Jan 1976.
       Despite McClory’s attempt to block the start of principal photography, a 21 Jul 1976 Box news item mentioned that filming on The Spy Who Loved Me would begin 31 Aug at Pinewood Studios in London. As the suit wound its way through the courts, a 2 Aug 1976 DV article stated that UA agreed that McClory had a “right to remake the Thunderball,” but disputed his claim that he had control of other Bond material, including the Warhead project aka James Bond of the Secret Service.
       Finally, an 11 Aug 1976 HR news item stated that Kevin McClory withdrew his “injunction to halt filming.” No further information regarding the outcome of McClory’s copyright infringement lawsuit is known.
       On 18 Oct 1978 Var announced that "The Spy Who Loved Me won the Grand Prix for use of sophisticated miniatures in special effects filming at the biennial conference of International Association of Film Technical Societies."
       A Feb 1979 AmCin article described in elaborate detail what it was like to create many of the challenging mechanical models and miniatures needed to further the film’s story line. When interest fizzled from oil companies about loaning the production a real tanker, a 63-foot long tanker was built in scale with model submarines. Only the front of the barge looked like a tanker and was bottomless to accommodate swallowing up the various submarines; the rest of the model looked like a Catamaran. Approximately six clones of the Lotus were built to accomplish assorted tasks including retracting wheels and folding wheel arches to give the vehicle a smooth aquatic appearance and another model that was specifically used for traveling underwater. In chase scenes on a winding Sardinian mountain road, a stuntman lying on his stomach hid inside the motorcycle sidecar and propelled it through a separate combustion engine. Lastly, the scene with “Jaws” in the shark tank was divided between surface shots using a mechanical shark and underwater shots using live sharks.
       A 23 Aug 1979 Rolling Stone article explained how James Bond films amounted to big business. The example it cited The Spy Who Loved Me went as follows: “The film earned $90 million in rental fees. UA reportedly earned $30.25 million for distribution but deducted the $13.5 million cost of production plus $2 million in ‘loan interest’ and about $7.5 million for ‘advertising, prints and parties.’” The net profits of the film totaled $36.75 million, according to Rolling Stone, which was split between UA and Danjaq S.A. (Broccoli’s production company).




      The end credit crawl carries the following statement: "Made by Eon Productions Limited on location in Egypt, Sardinia, Canada, Malta, Scotland, Okinawa, Switzerland and at Pinewood Studios, London, England; Underwater sequence filmed in Nassau, Bahamas." End credits also include the following acknowledgements: "The producers gratefully acknowledge the assistance and co-operation of: Royal Navy; Hotel Cala Di Volpe, Costa Smeralda, Sardinia; Egyptian Film, Theatre and Music Organisation; Parks Canada; Lotus Cars Ltd.; Wetbike - furnished by Arctic Enterprises, Thief River Falls, Minn.; Aviation Facilities, Capt. J. Crewdson - Helicopter Hire Ltd., Shell Oil Ltd., Perry Corporation; Ski Suits by Willy Bogner; Ford Motor Company, Seiko Watches, Kawasaki Motorcycles; Tanker Propulsion by Evinrude Motors; Furs by Grosvenor- Canada; Sony Corporation; Commonwealth of the Bahamas."