The Menendez Brothers on trial
The adaptation-rights cases that have sprinkled Bond-movie history aren’t the only times that 007 has gotten involved with real-life law and order. In 1989, when Licence to Kill came out, the movie almost served as the appropriately named alibi in a headline-grabbing murder case. The brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez were eventually convicted of killing their parents — surprising them while the couple, in a coincidence, watched a Bond movie on television — in order to get their inheritances faster. That day, the brothers went to go see LTK, but it was too crowded and they were too late; they had to use Batman as their alibi instead. The idea was that the movie tickets, for a showing that started right after the killings took place, would prove they were elsewhere — but it didn’t work.