The Property of a Lady

The Property of a Lady was a planned spy film, the seventeeth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions and would have been the third one to star Timothy Dalton as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Anthony Hopkins was considered to play the villain Denholm Crisp. The film was slated for a 1991 release date, but a series of legal and production problems caused the production to be constantly delayed and the project would eventually become the 1995 film GoldenEye.

Plot
The film would have focused on a terrorist attack on a chemical weapons laboratory in Scotland that James Bond had to stop in order to prevent World War III from happening. Additional locations that would have been featured in the film's plot were London, Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Cast

 * Timothy Dalton as James Bond
 * Anthony Hopkins as Denholm Crisp

Rest of the cast is unknown.

Why It Was Cancelled

 * 1) There were legal disputes between MGM, Danjaq and French company Pathé Communications regarding the international TV rights of the James Bond film series. The disputes were finally settled in December 1992.
 * 2) The film suffered changes on the writing staff and several re-writes to the script were made prior to Timothy Dalton's departure from the role.
 * 3) Timothy Dalton's three-film contract to play James Bond expired in 1993 and he stated that his contract ended as a result of the indefinite delay of the film due to the legal disputes (as mentioned above).

Results

 * The third Timothy Dalton James Bond film was permanently cancelled.
 * After a six-year hiatus following the release of Licence to Kill. James Bond returned to the big screen in 1995 with the release of GoldenEye, which starred Pierce Brosnan as 007.