Licence to Kill

Licence to Kill is a 1989 action-thriller film, the sixteenth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, and the second and final film to star Timothy Dalton as the MI6 agent James Bond. It sees Bond suspended from MI6 as he pursues the drug lord Franz Sanchez, who has ordered an attack against Bond's CIA friend Felix Leiter and the murder of Felix's wife after their wedding. Licence to Kill was the fifth and final Bond film directed by John Glen, the last to feature Robert Brown as M and Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny. It was also the last to feature the work of the screenwriter Richard Maibaum, the title designer Maurice Binder and the producer Albert R. Broccoli, all of whom died in the following years. Licence to Kill was the first Bond film to not use the title of an Ian Fleming story. Originally titled Licence Revoked, the name was changed during post-production due to American test audiences associating the term with driver's license. Although its plot is largely original, it contains elements of the Fleming novel Live and Let Die and the short story "The Hildebrand Rarity", interwoven with a sabotage premise influenced by Akira Kurosawa's film Yojimbo. For budget reasons, Licence to Kill became the first Bond film shot entirely outside the United Kingdom: principal photography took place on location in Mexico and the US, while interiors were filmed at Estudios Churubusco instead of Pinewood Studios. The film earned over $156 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews, with praise for the stunts, but attracted criticism for its darker tone, which carried into Dalton's portrayal of Bond.