Steven Spielberg Says James Bond Producers Rejected Him Twice — Then Indiana Jones Happened

Steven Spielberg has revealed that he twice asked to direct a James Bond film — and was turned down both times.

The director, who helped create the modern summer blockbuster and later became the highest-grossing filmmaker in Hollywood history, said he first approached Bond producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli after the global success of Jaws in 1975.

“I’d always wanted to make a James Bond film from the day I saw Dr. No, so I called Cubby after Jaws and volunteered,” Spielberg told The Rest Is Entertainment podcast. “I said, ‘If you need a director, I would love to direct one.’ And he said no.”

Spielberg tried again after Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in 1977. This time Broccoli contacted him because he wanted to use the film’s famous five-note melody in Moonraker, the 1979 Bond movie starring Roger Moore.

Spielberg thought he might finally have a way into the 007 world.

“I said, ‘I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you permission to use the five notes if you let me direct a Bond film,’” he recalled. “And he said no. But I gave him the five notes anyway.”

The melody briefly appears in Moonraker when a door code is entered. Spielberg said Broccoli never explained why he refused to let him direct a Bond film.

“So they consistently turned me down — at least, Broccoli did,” Spielberg said. “He never explained why he wasn’t letting me into the Bond family.”

That rejection became one of Hollywood’s great sliding-door moments. Spielberg later told the story to George Lucas while the two were in Hawaii in 1977, as Lucas was preparing for the release of Star Wars: A New Hope.

According to Spielberg, Lucas told him he had “something better than Bond.” At the time, the project was called Indiana Smith. It would later become Indiana Jones.

“He told me the premise of the Indiana Jones series, and that’s how I got that job,” Spielberg said.

Now, decades later, Spielberg says he would no longer chase the Bond job.

“If they ever asked me to make a Bond film now, my answer would be: ‘You can’t afford me.’”

Spielberg, 79, has directed some of the most successful films in cinema history, including the Indiana Jones movies, Jurassic Park and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. His films have earned more than $10 billion worldwide.

The Bond franchise, meanwhile, has long been known as a producer-led operation. Cubby Broccoli and, later, his family kept tight creative control over the series for decades.

That control remained with Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson until 2025, when they agreed to hand it over to Amazon MGM Studios.

Spielberg was not the only major filmmaker kept outside the Bond world. Quentin Tarantino once wanted to adapt Casino Royale after making Pulp Fiction, but the Broccoli family was not interested in letting an auteur director reshape the franchise.

Tarantino later said he was told, in effect, that the producers liked him but made a very specific kind of Bond film — and did not want anyone disrupting a formula that could reliably bring in huge box office returns.

That attitude echoed the advice Cubby Broccoli reportedly gave his children before his death: “Don’t let anybody else screw it up. You can screw it up if you want to, but don’t let other people screw it up.”

For Spielberg, the Bond rejection did not close a door so much as redirect him toward another adventure hero. He never got 007. Instead, he got Indiana Jones.