The history is that Kevin McClory co-wrote the treatment of Thunderball with Ian Fleming, upon which Fleming later based the novel of the same name. McClory was responsible for the whole concept of SPECTRE. He was the reason Eon had to stop using SPECTRE in its plots for the movies. In a nasty lawsuit, he won the rights to make Thunderball pretty much ad-nauseum. Never Say Never Again was the first of what was was planned to be MANY Thunderball remakes. McClory and Eon wound up in court again around 2000 and this time Eon won, not allowing McClory and Sony to make any more Bond pictures. More recently, Sony bought MGM, bringing both diverging franchises back under one roof, so McClory has been dealt a one-two punch. The likelihood of another McClory Thunderball remake is very very slim.

Incidently, I always took the line in Austin Powers about "Oh well, let's just do what we always do: Hijack a nuclear warhead and hold it for ransom" as a slam on McClory. After all, the man only had one plot and twelve scripts to rehash it over and over again. We got it the first go around. NSNA was an embarassment not because it wasn't well executed, but because it was Sean Connery remaking one of his own Bond outings. Octopussy outperformed it at the box office because it was original. Nothing more or less.