Max Zorin
A ruthless industrialist with a golden touch.
Max Zorin is a psychopathic industrialist and the product of a Nazi genetic experiment, played by Christopher Walken. He is the primary antagonist in the 1985 spy film A View to a Kill, the fourteenth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. Zorin plans to destroy California's Silicon Valley by detonating explosives beneath the lakes along the Hayward and San Andreas faults, triggering an earthquake that floods the valley to gain a monopoly over microchip manufacture. He is the owner of Zorin Industries and employs a chief henchwoman, May Day, and a security chief, Scarpine. Zorin was initially trained and financed by the KGB, but has gone rogue.
Lore & Background
Max Zorin is the product of medical experimentation with steroids performed by Dr. Carl Mortner, a Nazi scientist who now serves as Zorin's veterinarian and racehorse-breeding consultant. Zorin is a psychopathic industrialist who plans to destroy Silicon Valley to gain a monopoly in the microchip market. He owns Zorin Industries, a government contractor that produces microchips designed to withstand an electromagnetic pulse. Zorin's scheme involves implanting adrenaline-releasing devices in his racehorses to ensure they win consistently, and he succeeds in buying the family oil business of State Geologist Stacey Sutton via hostile takeover.
He kills Sir Godfrey Tibbett, an MI6 agent posing as a racehorse trainer, and later sets fire to San Francisco City Hall to frame Bond for murder, a fire that also kills the mayor and others. Zorin's plan culminates in detonating explosives beneath the lakes along the Hayward and San Andreas faults to trigger an earthquake that floods Silicon Valley, with a larger bomb in a mine shaft to destroy a geological lock that prevents the two faults from moving simultaneously. He dies when he falls from the Golden Gate Bridge after fighting Bond on top of it.
Reader's Guide
Max Zorin is the primary antagonist of the film A View to a Kill. He is a psychopathic industrialist who plans to destroy Silicon Valley by flooding it via explosives placed along the Hayward and San Andreas faults. Zorin is the product of Nazi genetic experimentation by Dr. Carl Mortner. He employs May Day as his chief henchwoman and Scarpine as his security chief. Zorin's scheme involves implanting adrenaline-releasing devices in his racehorses, buying Stacey Sutton's family oil business, and framing Bond for murder. He is killed when Bond fights him on the Golden Gate Bridge, causing Zorin to fall to his death. The film is the seventh and final appearance of Roger Moore as James Bond.
Did You Know?
- Max Zorin is played by Christopher Walken, who accepted the role after David Bowie and Sting turned it down.
- Zorin was initially trained and financed by the KGB, but later went rogue, as revealed by General Gogol.
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