Initially, after LICENSE TO KILL, no. The writing was on the wall well before 1994, when he officially “resigned” from the role. Then head of film development, John Calley, let it be known that he would not green light another Bond film with Dalton as the lead. This is unfair, as Dalton was garnering a disproportionate amount of the blame for the perceived failures of the last two films. Nonetheless, it was no secret that both The Living Daylights and License To Kill were both specifically tailored to take advantage of Dalton`s more ruthless approach to the character.

Perhaps Dalton thought that with Cubby Broccoli becoming increasingly ill or the lack of anymore Fleming titles and material to use (License to Kill became the first Bond film that did not use a Fleming book or short story as its title) would spell the end of the series. Perhaps he failed to see that Barbara and Michael would carry on the series. Whatever was going through his mind, he made this one very telling observation to BONDAGE (Issue 16, Winter 1989):”My feeling is this will be the last one. I don`t mean my last one, I mean the end of the whole lot. I don`t speak with any real authority, but it`s sort of a feeling I have. Sorry!”

Dalton made it clear he would continue to go on and act in more films, but that there would probably be no more Bond films. He may have seen the inevitable legal action that was eventually taken by EON and decided that that probably would spell the end of the series. But by late 1992 and early 1993, with the legal action over, he made some comments to the press that suggested he was waiting for a script to be written. Even EON issued a statement saying that Dalton was “the Bond of record”. In any event, there was a time when even Dalton wasn`t sure if he, or the series, would ever come back.