Greg Williams/Eon Productions, via Getty Images

Update

How do you like this: EON finally decided to make a real MOVIE with Ian Fleming's character. They're promising no models in $20,000 tuxedoes playing spy, no stupid one-liners, and an actual Fleming story. (Wait, I think I'm actually reading the press kit for Moonraker. So let's take this with a grain of salt. AN EXTREMELY SMALL grain of salt.) At this point we can only hope they don't muck it up. (Learn from the last version - no monkeys in wigs!)

EON Productions gained the rights for Casino Royale in 1999 after Sony Pictures Entertainment exchanged them for MGM's rights to Spider-Man.

In March 2004, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade began writing a screenplay for Pierce Brosnan as Bond, aiming to bring back an Ian Fleming flavor. Paul Haggis' main contribution was to rewrite the climax of the film. He explained, "the draft that was there was very faithful to the book and there was a confession, so in the original draft the character confessed and killed herself. She then sent Bond to chase after the villains; Bond chased the villains into the house. I don't know why but I thought that Vesper had to be in the sinking house and Bond has to want to kill her and then try and save her."

Pierce Brosnan had originally signed a deal for four films when he was cast in the role of James Bond. This was fulfilled with the production of Die Another Day in 2002. However, at this stage Brosnan was approaching his 50th birthday, and speculation began that the producers were seeking to replace him with a younger actor. Brosnan officially announced he was stepping down in February 2005.

At one point producer Michael G. Wilson claimed there was a list of over 200 names being considered for his replacement. According to Martin Campbell, Henry Cavill was the only actor in serious contention for the role. But being only 22 years old at the time, he was considered too young. Sam Worthington was also considered.

In May 2005, Daniel Craig announced that MGM and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli had assured him that he would get the role of Bond, and Matthew Vaughn told reporters that MGM offered him the opportunity to direct, but EON Productions at that point had not approached either of them.

A year beforehand, Craig rejected the offer as he felt the series had descended into formula: only when he read the script did he become interested. Craig read all of Fleming's novels to prepare for the part, and cited Mossad and British Secret Service agents who served as advisors on the set of Munich as inspiring because, "Bond has just come out of the service and he's a killer. [...] You can see it in their eyes, you know immediately: oh, hello, he's a killer. There's a look. These guys walk into a room and very subtly they check the perimeters for an exit. That's the sort of thing I wanted."

On 14 October 2005, EON Productions, Sony Pictures Entertainment, and MGM announced at a press conference in London that Craig would be the sixth actor to portray James Bond. A tuxedo-clad Craig arrived via a Royal Navy speedboat. Significant controversy followed the decision, as it was doubted if the producers had made the right choice. Throughout the entire production period Internet campaigns such as danielcraigisnotbond.com expressed their dissatisfaction and threatened to boycott the film in protest. Craig, unlike previous actors, was not considered by the protesters to fit the tall, dark, handsome and charismatic image of Bond to which viewers had been accustomed.

The Daily Mirror ran a front page news story critical of Craig, with the headline, "The Name's Bland— James Bland."

"The movie was delivered to some theaters under the codename: "Rough Skins".

It was the first James Bond film approved by Chinese censors. All other films in the series were available in China only as illegal bootlegs.

Bond smokes heavily in the book, but Daniel Craig actually had to quit smoking and hire Simon Waterson as a personal trainer to get into shape in order to play the physically intensive role (Bond didn't have to endure miles of free running .

New York Times
By SHARON WAXMAN
Published: October 15, 2005

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 14 - The new James Bond is blond. Rough trade, with a pale, flattened face and large, fleshy ears. Accent: well, it ain't Oxbridge.

By the time Daniel Craig came churning up the Thames in a power boat for Friday's official announcement in London that he had been cast as Agent 007, much of the world was already in the know. The mystery in the selection of this 37-year-old actor, who had cleaned up nicely in a blue suit and red tie, was why it had taken so long.

The extravagance of the media event belied many months of maneuvering and worry, in which the longtime guardian of the Bond franchise, Barbara Broccoli, and the brand-new distributor of Bond movies, Sony's Columbia Pictures, struggled to settle on a leading actor who could make the series younger, darker and more hip. The search took close to 2 years and considered some 200 actors on 3 continents.

"I was desperately afraid, and Barbara was desperately afraid, we would go downhill," said Michael G. Wilson, the producer of the new Bond film, "Casino Royale," with Ms. Broccoli. He even told that to Pierce Brosnan, the suave James Bond who had a successful run of four films, he said.

"We are running out of energy, mental energy," Mr. Wilson recalled saying. "We need to generate something new, for ourselves."

Like much in Hollywood today, the choice of Mr. Craig came about partly because of a shift in the leisure habits of young men, who used to be the most avid moviegoing audience but have been migrating to other interests. In the late 1990's, market research showed Bond movies to have the oldest demographic of any action-adventure series. Lately, however, the booming success of Bond video games has driven a younger audience to the movies, Mr. Wilson said - which Sony and the producers do not want to disappoint.

Hence the decision to move on from Mr. Brosnan toward a rangy, kinetic actor like Mr. Craig, who played a cocaine dealer in this year's indie crime thriller "Layer Cake" and the creepy son of Paul Newman, Irish crime boss, in "Road to Perdition" in 2002.

The director of "Casino Royale," Martin Campbell, promised at the news conference that it would have "more character, less gadgets" than other Bond films.

But will audiences embrace a rougher-hewn Bond? Mr. Craig becomes the sixth actor to take on the role since 1962, after Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Mr. Brosnan.

Mr. Brosnan, 52, has been one of the more successful incarnations of the spy, starring in recent hit films, including "Die Another Day," which took in $431 million at the box office worldwide. News reports said Mr. Brosnan priced himself out of a sequel when he demanded a hefty raise to about $40 million to do the next film, which would have included a percentage of the box-office revenue.

Mr. Brosnan continued to lobby publicly for the role, and as recently as a week ago told The San Francisco Chronicle he was still available.

But Mr. Wilson said the decision did not have to do with money. "If we wanted to make a deal, we would've made a deal with Pierce at some financially viable level," he said. "This was about us trying to find new inspiration for the series."

Other impediments slowed down matters, primarily the sale of MGM, which had produced and distributed all the Broccoli-produced Bond movies, to a consortium of investors led by Sony. The film, initially scheduled for release in November of this year, was postponed with the sale. Casting, which had already been going on in London, then had to be re-examined when MGM came under the aegis of Sony's Columbia Pictures and the Sony motion picture group's chief executive, Amy Pascal.

According to several executives involved in the project, Ms. Broccoli had already settled on Mr. Craig by April.

But by the summer, Ms. Pascal wanted to begin a more exhaustive search that would include other, younger actors. Eventually, some 200 actors from throughout the British Commonwealth came up for discussion, Mr. Wilson said.

They included well-known faces, among them Colin Farrell, Orlando Bloom and Clive Owen. And they included many unknowns. Those who rated screen tests included the British actor Henry Cavill, the Australians Alex O'Lachlan and Sam Worthington, and the Croatian-born Goran Visnjic.

It was only after all these ruminations that the producers and Sony finally settled on Mr. Craig. "I think that he has a kind of intensity, and a sexuality, and a roguishness," Ms. Pascal said. "And he seems like he could be a spy."

For both Ms. Broccoli and Sony, executives said, the model was Jason Bourne, the character Matt Damon successfully incarnated in two gritty spy movies for Universal Pictures, "The Bourne Identity" and "The Bourne Supremacy."

But the producers and Sony are well aware that they are tinkering with one of Hollywood's most lucrative franchises, one that has generated an estimated $4 billion in ticket sales over more than four decades. It is MGM's most important film property and a legacy carefully guarded by Ms. Broccoli, whose father, Albert R. Broccoli, initiated the movie series, based on the books by Ian Fleming, in 1962 with "Dr. No."

"Casino Royale" - also the subject of a spoof Bond movie in 1967 - was the very first Bond novel. Ms. Broccoli gained the rights to it in 2001 in the wake of a legal battle.

Bond fans quickly reminded the producers on Friday just how risky their decision to shift direction might be, and that "dark" and "hip" were far from what they imagined as the shaken-not-stirred polish of the James Bond character.

Moments after the announcement, one fan wrote on the Web site Absolutely James Bond (www.ajb007.com): "My god, don't the producers have any brains? Craig is not Bond material. Bond must be tall, dark and handsome. Or at least two of the three, and he isn't even one!"

Ms. Pascal said fans would have to wait to see the movie before judging Mr. Craig. As for the online criticism, she observed: "Well, he is tall. He's the same size as Sean Connery."

Martin Campbell: "The truth is that I think with the style of movie that Pierce, his last one for example I think with the gadgets, the invisible car the huge sort of ice palaces, the kind of water skiing off or should I say snow boarding...I mean I just thought it got preposterous and then finally the 747 going down in a massive amount flames that goes on forever. I think they got to a point where you couldn't go any more than that. It was getting to ridiculous."

Latino Review: Why is Daniel Craig the best choice to play Bond?

Martin Campbell: "Because first of all he's a terrific actor, and I think it's on Casino Royale were Fleming always said he looked like Hoagy Carmichael, which is a very interesting and he is a very interesting looking guy and I think he has all the attributes to make a much grittier and tougher Bond."

Latino Review: How close is the film going to mirror the book?

Martin Campbell: "The second half of the book is very close. The first half isn't and when you read you'll understand why. It's because it's set in the Cold War and the organizations the Russian secret service they have a man in France who they send money to in order to disrupt the union, its very much about the Cold War. It was written in 1953 so obviously that's changed because there is no Cold War. But the rest is going to be pretty much intact, The whole game takes place; Le Chiffre is the bad guy, your genital whacking scene that all remains, so the last two thirds of the movie will be like the book. And the Bond will fall in love with Vesper Lynd as he does in the book. This is the last book that they are filming because they have done all of them."

Auds grow fond of 'short, blond' Bond

Weekly Variety
By NICOLE LAPORTE
Date in print: Mon., Nov. 27, 2006

It wasn't all that long ago that disgruntled James Bond fans were asking why "a short, blond actor with the rough face of a professional boxer and a penchant for playing villains, killers, cranks and cads" -- i.e., Daniel Craig -- had been cast as the new 007.

One reason may be $82.8 million -- which is what "Casino Royale" made worldwide in its opening weekend.

Another could be the largely positive reviews for the film and for Craig. The gushing is almost as loud as the grumbling was when Craig was first announced, particularly on the Internet and in tabloids. Loyalists of erstwhile 007 Pierce Brosnan erected sites such as craignotbond.com and danielcraigisnotbond.com, lambasting Craig as a "terrible choice" and anointing their site "home of the 'Casino Royale' boycott."

A perusal of the Web shows that since the release of "Casino Royale," most of those sites are curiously "under construction." (The exception is danielcraigisnotbond.com, which remains dedicated to the cause -- recent headlines proclaimed "New Bond Is a Dud" and "Penguins Take Bond Over the Weekend.")

The tabs, too, have changed their tune. While the New York Post was quick to nip Craig for his inability to drive a stick-shift during filming ("Nonstick 007"), the Post now is declaring: "Platinum Bond -- Craig Smolders in Thrilling Reboot of 007 Franchise."

REVIEW:

Casino Royale is the best James Bond film in forty years, and the first to truly marry the film icon with the original literary vision of Bond. It is faithful to the Fleming source material, yet it is still contemporary, and remains in the tradition of the action/adventures that EON has been creating for the last few decades.

The first movie of any kind that I remember seeing was Thunderball, in a drive-in double feature. My dad took me, against the objections of my mother (after all, I was only five). But that's what 007 films were for in the sixties. They allowed fathers and sons to bond (pardon the pun). Girls, guns, gratuitous sex and violence... the greatest gift a dad can give. And that film was the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my five long years. I'm sure I had seen movies before, but none of them stuck with me like Thunderball. It was an adult fantasy of sex, violence and danger - which, let's face it, is much more fun for a kid too see than a children's movie.

So flash forward to 1979, and I'm a teenager, entering a multiplex to see Moonraker. To my surprise, the dads were gone. Over the course of a decade, almost imperceptibly, the James Bond films had started catering more to the children: Very little blood, no hint of reality, and no sex (except for the occasional unfunny double entendre). I realized that Bond films had changed from a series where dads took their sons to watch together into a series where dads dropped their kids off for the matinee. (Nothing more kid-friendly than a film about a government assassin, right?)

Well, nearly thirty years after that, dad can finally return. Casino Royale is for grownups.

EON has tried to return Bond to his more serious roots before, but kind of chickened out with Timothy Dalton's films. With The Living Daylights, instead of crafting a taut, dramatic script for an intense actor like Dalton, they just took a script written for a Moore-like 007 and removed the punch lines, basically stranding a serious Bond in an adventure in which a cello case is used as escape sled from the KGB. Dalton's second film was darker and more respectful of Fleming's source material, but the end product was foiled by the WGA strike in Hollywood, leaving one of the producers to write the script himself, and the storytelling and characters suffered accordingly.

But this isn't the case in Casino Royale. The star of the film, Daniel Craig, would list Dalton's portrayal of Bond as an important influence. In fact, his take on Bond adds the best of all of the previous interpretations--but does so as the film unfolds and his character evolves. An ingenious element in this reboot is that the actor does not have to immediately step into Sean Connery's immense shoes (no offense, Sean), which is the usual downfall of anybody playing 007. The fun is watching Craig's Bond grow into the classic 007 character.

Another ingenious move was to hire an actor who could actually accomplish this. Instead of just going for an actor with the "Bond look," and trying to shoehorn him into the characterization, they went for an actor who could make the part his own. Director Martin Campbell has called Craig the Bond of his time, saying Pierce Brosnan could not star in this film and likewise Craig couldn't star in GoldenEye. But I disagree. Craig could handle just about any Bond characterization from the past films (although I doubt he would've wanted to star in a handful of them). He embodies the best of all the previous incarnations, marrying the icon of the films to the man of the books. And Craig's triumph is that never for a moment during the film do you think of any of those previous incarnations. Craig is Bond.

But the most important change was when they brought in Oscar winner Paul Haggis to work on the script. The lame sexual-innuendo-laced dialogue of the last decade has been replaced with actual human banter that shapes the characters. Everybody talks differently, in his or her own voice. (When even M was talking in sex puns in the Brosnan films, you knew the filmmakers were on cruise control.)

So while the kid stuff is still there in the story (you know, the sex, murder, and bloody violence), there is a maturity to the film that we haven't seen since… well, ever.

A prime example of this can be seen in Judi Dench's "M," whom is finally a character that lives up to Ian Fleming's writing, rather than just being a post-feminist comment on it. Dench has appeared as this character before, at least in name, in the Brosnan films. But this M is no "bean-counter." In fact, she takes on a monstrous edge akin to Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate. She molds Bond into a cold killer, as only a loving mother could. In the first scene of the film, Bond announces he is about to kill a double-agent on her orders - no arrest, no interrogation, no trial - and does so, thereby earning a promotion from her. Over the course of the film, she scolds Bond, threatens to have him killed, threatens to expose him to the press, informs him that promoting him was a mistake -- and Bond's response is "I love you too, M." It is truly an intriguing, bizarre relationship, and their scenes together are some of the best in the series. When Craig offers the famous last line of the novel, "the bitch is dead," which always reads so cold, so cruel in print - the screenwriters have given M an even colder response in the scene, in which she says simply: "You've learned your lesson, then." She has created one more 00 -- and one less caring human being with any chance for happiness.

Which is my real point here. This Bond isn't all grown-up because they've amped up the blood and sex - all of the Bond movies have that in varying degrees. It's because he's finally allowed to be a tragic figure, after 40 years of escapist comic book movies where double entendres replaced conversation. Not since On Her Majesty's Secret Service have we left a Bond movie with the feeling that it sucks a little to be James Bond. But that's a good thing - it's a vast improvement over the feeling I had after the last few films - that it sucked to WATCH James Bond. He's human again, and a human being is much more fun to watch after twenty-one films than an icon, because a human can keep surprising you.

And what a terrific surprise it is.

Grade: A+ -- I feel like I'm five again!

The film was a game changer for the cinematic team. They had not only changed their lead actor, they had forever changed their hero. Until 2006, the cinematic James Bond was only an icon. Casino Royale made him tragic, like the literary creation, and thus a true hero. He tells Vesper that he's going to leave the service while he still has a soul -- but she dies, and he is left heartbroken and empty.... and returns to M, having "learned his lesson." This effectively changes every film in the series. Now when audiences watch, say, Sean Connery in Dr. No, they do so with the knowledge of what James Bond has already lost to get there: His soul. He can never love or be loved, and the immediate, shallow pleasures of martinis, nice clothes and one-night stands are the only pleasures his short life will ever know.

The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2006.[86]

* 1st - Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
* 3rd - Empire
* 3rd - Marc Moha, The Oregonian
* 3rd - Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com
* 3rd - William Arnold, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
* 7th - Jack Mathews, New York Daily News
* 8th - James Berardinelli, ReelViews
* 8th - Desson Thomson, Washington Post
* 8th - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
* 9th - Stephen Hunter, Washington Post
* 10th - Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune
* 10th - Mike Russell, The Oregonian

Roger Moore wrote, "Daniel Craig impressed me so greatly in his debut outing, Casino Royale by introducing a more gritty, unrefined edge to the character that I thought Sean might just have to move over. Craig’s interpretation was like nothing we’d seen on screen before; Jimmy Bond was earning his stripes and making mistakes. It was intriguing to see him being castigated by M, just like a naughty schoolboy would be by his headmaster. The script showed him as a vulnerable, troubled and flawed character. Quite the opposite to my Bond! Craig was, and is, very much the Bond Ian Fleming had described in the books – a ruthless killing machine. It was a Bond that the public wanted." Moore even bought the DVD.

The opening shot of Craig sporting swimming trunks topped the sexiest male celebrity poll of The Sun, and in 2009 Del Monte Foods launched an ice lolly moulded to resemble Craig emerging from the sea.

In 2008, Entertainment Weekly named it the 19th best film of the past quarter-century.

COOL CAMEOS

Look for a cameo from VERUSCHKA VON LEHNDORFF (fetching in her late 60's!)

Director MARTIN CAMPBELL has his neck broken at the airport!

Uber-mogul RICHARD BRANSON of Virgin Airways appears in CR very briefly... at the airport being frisked by Miami security!

TSAI CHIN (YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE) plays cards onscreen as does DIANE HARTFORD (THUNDERBALL). Now, if only we can hear Vic Flick and John Barry next time!

Yes, that's MICHAEL WILSON "done in" by Mathis early in the Montenegro scenes.

We visited the roadway where Bond drives in Nassau with water outside his driver's window for BCW 9. The brief road scene was filmed just a few hundred yards from PALYMRA, LARGO'S BAHAMAS HOME!

Casino Royale is a visual masterpiece and kudos to cinematographer Phil Meheux along with an acting role. MR. MEHEUX plays the British Treasury representative who is seen standing, naturally bathed in sunlight from M's office window near the end of the film!

"Steven Obbano" is a high-ranking member of the Lord's Resistance Army [LRA] who banks a considerable sum ($101,260,000) with Le Chiffre but is a thinly veiled portrait of ruthless Ugandan rebel leader JOSEPH KONY. Kony (44) is the head of LRA, a notorious guerrilla group that has wreaked havoc to northern Uganda for 20 years in a violent campaign to establish a theocratic government in Uganda. Ivory Coast star actor Isaach De Bankolé, who resembles Kony in appearance, plays Obanno and he speaks some Acholi in the movie. When a boy brings water to Obanno he thanks him in Acholi, "Apoyo mateke," (Thank you very much)...

The footage set in Uganda was filmed at Black Park, a 530-acre Country Park in Buckinghamshire also utilized in GOLDFINGER, OCTOPUSSY, THE WORLD IS NOT ENOUGH and DIE ANOTHER DAY.

Africa News 6 December 2006, Filmmaker - The rebel leader Joseph Kony is portrayed in the latest Agent 007 movie Casino Royale, the 21st film under the James Bond brand name. The film is the first to star actor Daniel Craig as British Secret Service agent James Bond. Kony (44) is the head of LRA, a notorious guerrilla group that has wreaked havoc to northern Uganda for 20 years in a violent campaign to establish a theocratic government in Uganda, based on the Biblical Ten Commandments.
The movie opens with a muddy murram road, thick woodland and an army Land Rover car with a Ugandan number plate before the words "Mbale Uganda" appear on screen. In Mbale is where they show a ruthless Ugandan warlord by the names of Steven Obanno (Joseph Kony).

The write-up on Casino Royale states that Obbano is a high-ranking member of the Lord's Resistance Army who banks a considerable sum ($101,260,000) with the movie's major villain Le Chiffre.
Le Chiffre ends up losing Obanno's money when one of his stock sorting schemes fails due to Bond's intervention, prompting him to arrange a poker tournament at Casino Royale in Montenegro to recoup the loss.
When Obanno learns of the loss of his money he and his bodyguard travel to Montenegro, break into Le Chiffre's hotel suite and ambush him and his mistress Valenka; threatening to cut off one of her hands. Le Chiffre implores Obanno to give him one day to win the tournament and recoup the loss. Obanno grants this and leaves the suite.

Ian Flemming

In the hall, Obanno and his bodyguard notice Bond and Vesper lurking in the vicinity. When the bodyguard sees the hearing device in Bond's ear, he goes to attack Bond, who throws him over a stairwell to his death.
Obanno then attacks Bond with a machete concealed inside his jacket, but Bond gains the upper hand and strangles Obanno to death.
According Wikipedia website, "The movie is based on Ian Flemming's novel Casino Royale. In the novel, the terrorists' organisation whose money Le Chiffre has lost was Smersh. But in a draft of the film's script, it is the Lord's Resistance Army, although this is never referenced in the actual movie."

Terrorism organisations

Ivory Coast star actor Isaach De Bankolé, who resembles Kony in appearance, plays Obanno and he speaks some Acholi in the movie. When a boy brings water to Obanno he thanks him in Acholi, "Apoyo mateke," (Thank you very much). Kony hails from Odek, a village east of Gulu in Acholiland in northern Uganda and he fluently speaks Acholi. Mbale is in eastern Uganda near Kenya.
The information on websites states that the footage set in Uganda was filmed at Black Park, a 530-acre Country Park in Buckinghamshire England. However, the moviemakers had to get a person who resembles the LRA leader and fortunately they found 49-year old Bankolé who has appeared in over 30 films, including Ghost Dog; The Way of the Samurai and Coffee and Cigarettes. The movie depicts the Ugandan warlord as a ruthless rebel affiliated to other terrorism organisations around the world.

Bin Laden

Kony has been connected to the likes of Bin Laden and recently there were reports that the Ugandan government was planning to meet collaborators of the LRA and its ex-financiers in Nairobi, Kenya in an effort to woo the rebels holed up in DRC's Garamba National Park to denounce rebellion.
The movie with running time of 144 minutes is based on the 1953 novel Casino Royale by Ian Fleming and was adapted by Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis and directed by Martin Campbell.
Despite initial controversy over Craig's casting, his performance and the film have received positive reviews and it is one of the hottest movies in the world.