delgadosaur wrote:
ryanbrennan wrote:
delgadosaur wrote:
I acknowledge the longevity, but the Tarzans ebbed and flowed, while the Bond string is continuous.
Two interruptions of 6 & 4 years.  That's not counting the 8 years between the false start of CASINO ROYALE and DR. NO.

Thank you, yes, interruptions. The Bond films stayed with UA/MGM/Sony/The Broccolis for all these years.

Studios give up the rights when they properties do not make money anymore, and the Tarzan films bounced around from studio to studio, some successful other not.

That's the core of this discussion, the steady stream of Bond films into modernity, which is something the Tarzan films could not maintain.

Try making a Bond movie and Sony would fight tooth and nail.

Seems like the Tarzan film rights open up every few years or so.

Regarding rights go, as far as I can tell no one ever had the rights to all the Tarzan novels.  Burroughs didn't relinquish them.  They were sold more or less piecemeal.  That's why you could have rival films that were still legal.  The Tarzan movies were hits from the get go, something which probably kept Burroughs from letting the rights go too cheaply or at all.

On the other hand, while the Bond novels sold well, the first foray, the TV version of CASINO ROYALE, didn't excite anybody or hint at the future potential.  No subsequent offers were forthcoming and, despite trying, Fleming couldn't break into the film world.  He had to wait nearly a decade before he was able to really cash in on his creation and sold off his entire fiction oeuvre.