At the preflight briefing an officer says, "You'll be flying a Vulcan armed with two atomic bombs, MOS type." MOS is a standard motion picture abbreviation, used to indicate a film segment has no audio, "Mit out sound". So two "silent" atomic bombs.
Coinciding with the release of the film, Milton Bradley marketed a "Thunderball" board game, having marketed a "James Bond" board game the previous year. These were just two of numerous 007 tie-ins introduced on the market at the height of the early Bond boom.
During the recording of the title song "Thunderball", Tom Jones asked the song's writer what the "strikes like thunderball" line meant. The song's composer allegedly replied that he didn't know. Jones reportedly fainted after recording the high note at the end of recording the song.
Final James Bond film directed by Terence Young.
First 007 film in which Bond doesn't smoke. Interestingly though, a large papier-mache Marlboro box can be spotted on the right side of the screen during a festival.
For the opening main title sequence, title designer Maurice Binder filmed swimmers swimming naked in black and white before adding in the color by an optical process afterward.
For the scene where Major Francois Derval opens the door on himself, it was a composited shot, and not a body double used.
Ford produced a promotional film A Child's Guide to Blowing Up a Motor Car as a promotional film to tie-in with the release of the movie. The seventeen minute gently humorous short film was about a boy's visit with his godfather Uncle Denis to one of the movie's filming locations at Silverstone Racetrack, Northamptonshire, England. The end credits state "Made for the Film Library of FORD OF BRITAIN". It is available on the Thunderball DVD Ultimate Edition.
In early outlines / treatments for this movie, the Domino Derval (aka Dominique Derval) character was known as Domino Smith. She is known as Domino Petachi in this movie's remake, Never Say Never Again. The Paula Caplan character was called Paula Roberts at first.
In early outlines / treatments for this movie, the Emilio Largo character was known as Henrico Largo. He is known as Maximilian Largo in this movie's remake, Never Say Never Again. Emilio Largo's eye-patch was worn over his left eye whilst the Maximilian Largo character was not given an eye patch.
In Spanish, Italian and Portuguese, Disco Volante translates as "Flying Saucer."
In the scene where Bond and Domino meet underwater and disappear behind a rock, the scene was originally supposed to show Domino's bikini float out from behind the rock. Producer Albert R. Broccoli vetoed this because he felt it was too suggestive.
In the trailer for the film, Bond says the line, "The things I do for England." The line was cut from the final version of the film, and then used in the next Bond film, You Only Live Twice.
In the underwater scenes where Bond encounters sharks, Sean Connery was supposed to be protected by clear plastic panels shielding him from sharks in close-ups. However, the panels only extended about three feet in height and sharks could swim over them; as a result in some scenes (notably during the pool fight at Largo's mansion) Connery got much closer to real sharks than he wanted - director Terence Young said in an interview that scenes used in the film where Bond reacts in fright at the approach of a shark were miscues in which Connery was reacting with genuine terror as a shark approached unobstructed by plastic shielding.
It took almost thirty years for the complete soundtrack for the film to be released. This was because composer John Barry was still scoring the second half of the picture when the music for the recording of the soundtrack was required. Practically no music from the second half of the movie appeared in the original score's release.
It's rumored that a Royal Navy engineer approached the producers after the film's release to ask them how they designed the mini-rebreather. Apparently he had been working on something similar but could not figure it out. He was devastated when the producers told them their secret - the actors were holding their breaths. The amount of time one had to breathe underwater in the movie utilizing the Rebreather mini-aqualung was four minutes.
James Bond does not drink a vodka martini shaken not stirred in this movie but he does order a Dom Perignon 55 champagne by a swimming pool whilst dining with Domino.
Largo's two-section yacht the Disco Volante was adapted from a hydrofoil vessel called The Flying Fish. It cost $500,000 to acquire from Puerto Rico and transfer to Miami for refitting and refurbishment. It was given a cocoon shell which was fifty feet long and could be separated from the main boat as seen in the movie's finale.
Members of the cast and crew were interviewed several times about the film while it was being shot due to the immense popularity of the Bond series. Sean Connery, however, consented to just one interview and it was with "Playboy" magazine.
Principal photography at Château d'Anet, Anet, Eure-et-Loir, France coincided with the French Premiere of the previous James Bond movie, Goldfinger. As such, members of the production attended the French launch.