Buying a “complete” DVD box set of a movie series that might never end, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe or Star Wars, is kind of a weird idea, but you’d at least expect a “complete” box set to include everything that had been released up until this point. That’s the assumption a woman named Mary Johnson made when she bought a James Bond set on Amazon, but it turns out that her box set wasn’t exactly as complete as it was advertised to be. The collection, which cost $106.44, didn’t actually include the 1967 version of Casino Royale or the 1983 Sean Connery installment Never Say Never Again.
Big James Bond nerds probably know why these movies might not be included in a box set, as neither one was originally released as part of the “canonical” movie series, but the rights are now at least partly controlled by modern-day Bond distributor MGM. In other words, it’s understandable that the movies wouldn’t be part of a “complete” box set, but these days they probably could be.
Johnson has filed a lawsuit against MGM and 20th Century Fox, asserting that it’s not fair to require someone to be a “James Bond expert” in order to “understand that ‘all’ does not mean all, and ‘every’ means only certain films.” The judge, who seems to have had more fun with this than necessary, said that it’s now up to a jury to decide if Casino Royale and Never Say Never Again should be included in a “complete set of James Bond film,” adding, “from the Defendants’ perspective, this claim will have to Die Another Day.”