What is "thunderball"

Thunderball is the ninth book in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, and the eighth full-length James Bond novel. It was first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 27 March 1961, where the initial print run of 50,938 copies quickly sold out. The first novelization of an unfilmed James Bond screenplay, it was born from a collaboration by five people: Ian Fleming, Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, Ivar Bryce and Ernest Cuneo, although the controversial shared credit of Fleming, McClory and Whittingham was the result of a courtroom decision.

The story centres on the theft of two atomic bombs by the crime syndicate SPECTRE and the subsequent attempted blackmail of the Western powers for their return. James Bond, Secret Service operative 007, travels to the Bahamas to work with his friend Felix Leiter, seconded back into the CIA for the investigation. Thunderball also introduces SPECTRE's leader Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in the first of three appearances in Bond novels, with On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice being the others.

Thunderball has been adapted three times, once in a comic strip format for the Daily Express newspaper and twice for the cinema. The Daily Express strip was cut short on the order of its owner, Lord Beaverbrook, after Ian Fleming signed an agreement with The Sunday Times to publish a short story. On screen, Thunderball was released in 1965 as the fourth film in the Eon Productions series, with Sean Connery as James Bond. The second adaptation, Never Say Never Again, was released as an independent production in 1983 also starring Connery as Bond and was produced by Kevin McClory.

Thunderball (Eliot Franklin) is a fictional character, a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a frequent enemy of Thor and a somewhat reluctant ally of the Wrecker and the Wrecking Crew.

Thunderball is the soundtrack album for the fourth James Bond film Thunderball.

The album was first released by United Artists Records in 1965 in both monaural and stereo editions, with a CD release in 1988. The music was composed and conducted by John Barry, and performed by the John Barry Orchestra. This was Barry's third soundtrack for the series. The soundtrack was still being recorded when it came time for the album to be released, so the LP only featured twelve tracks from earlier in the film; an expanded edition with six bonus tracks was released for the first time when the album was reissued on Compact Disc on 25 February 2003 as part of the "James Bond Remastered" collection. Additionally, the music in the film was unfinished days before the film's release in theatres due to a late change by Eon Productions to use a title song with the same name as the film.

Thunderball may refer to:

• Thunderball (novel), 1961 James Bond novel by Ian Fleming
  • Thunderball (film), 1965 film adaptation of the novel starring Sean Connery
  • Thunderball (soundtrack), of the 1965 film
• Thunderball (comics), comics character
• Thunderball (U.D.O. album), also the title song
• Thunderball (band), a band at one time signed to ESL Music
• Operation Thunderball, original name of Operation Entebbe, a 1976 hostage-rescue mission
• Thunderball, a game (draw), introduced in 1999, in the United Kingdom's National Lottery,
• Thunderball, fictional game in sketches by comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade

Thunderball is U.D.O.'s ninth studio album. After their previous studio album, U.D.O. had released the DVD Nailed To Metal and an accompanying live CD entitled Nailed To Metal - The Missing Tracks in 2003.

The title of this album and Udo Dirkschneider's posture on the cover are allusions to the movie Thunderball.

The album was recorded at Roxx Studio in Pulheim.

Thunderball (1965) is the fourth spy film in the James Bond series starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Ian Fleming, which in turn was based on an original screenplay by Jack Whittingham. It was directed by Terence Young with its screenplay by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins.

The film follows Bond's mission to find two NATO atomic bombs stolen by SPECTRE, which holds the world to ransom for £100 million in diamonds, in exchange for not destroying an unspecified major city in either England or the United States (later revealed to be Miami). The search leads Bond to the Bahamas, where he encounters Emilio Largo, the card-playing, eye patch-wearing SPECTRE Number Two. Backed by CIA agent Felix Leiter and Largo's mistress, Domino Derval, Bond's search culminates in an underwater battle with Largo's henchmen. The film had a complex production, with four different units and about a quarter of the film consisting of underwater scenes. Thunderball was the first Bond film shot in widescreen Panavision and the first to have running time of over two hours.

Thunderball was associated with a legal dispute in 1961 when former Ian Fleming collaborators Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham sued him shortly after the 1961 publication of the novel, claiming he based it upon the screenplay the trio had earlier written in a failed cinematic translation of James Bond. The lawsuit was settled out of court and Bond film series producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, fearing a rival McClory film, allowed him to retain certain screen rights to the novel's story, plot, and characters, and for McClory to receive sole producer credit on this film; Broccoli and Salzman were instead credited as Executive Producers.

The film was a success, earning a total of $141.2 million worldwide, exceeding the earnings of the three previous Bond films. In 1966, John Stears won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and production designer Ken Adam was also nominated for a BAFTA award. Thunderball is the most financially successful film of the series after adjusting for inflation. Some critics and viewers showered praise on the film and branded it a welcome addition to the series, while others complained of the repetitively monotonous aquatic action and prolonged length. In 1983, Warner Bros. released a second film adaptation of the novel under the title Never Say Never Again, with McClory as executive producer.