Trivia

In July 2006, as Casino Royale entered post-production, EON Productions announced that the next film would be based on an original idea by producer Michael G. Wilson.

Wilson developed the film's plot while Casino Royale was being shot. Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis, and Joshua Zetumer contributed to the script.

The title was chosen from a 1960 short story in Ian Fleming's For Your Eyes Only, though the film does not contain any elements of the original story (according to the film's producer and plot developer). It does use the primary thematic element, that of one's humanity vanishing with a quantum of solace.

Other Fleming elements: a conversation between Bond and Rene Mathis about the nature of evil from Fleming's Casino Royale is reworked in the ending scene. M's assistant being a villain alludes to The Property of a Lady. The ending of the film is similar to that of 007 in New York in which Bond is warning a female agent that her boyfriend is a honeypot. The differences are that the agent is Canadian, not British, and that this takes place in Russia, not New York. .

It was decided beforehand the film would be a direct sequel, to exploit Bond's emotions following Vesper's death in the previous film.

The film was confirmed for a 2 May 2008 release date, with Craig reprising the lead role.

Roger Michell, who directed Craig in Enduring Love and The Mother, was in negotiations to direct, but opted out because there was no script.

Sony Entertainment vice-chairman Jeff Blake admitted a production schedule of eighteen months was a very short window, and the release date was pushed back to late 2008.

Neal Purvis and Robert Wade completed their draft of the script by April 2007, and Paul Haggis--who polished the Casino Royale script--began his rewrite the next month.

In June 2007, Marc Forster was confirmed as director. He was surprised that he was approached for the job, stating he was not a big Bond film fan through the years, and that he would not have accepted the project had he not seen Casino Royale prior to making his decision: he felt Bond had been humanised in that film, arguing since traveling the world had become less exotic since the series' advent, it made sense to focus more on Bond as a character. Born in Germany and raised in Switzerland, Forster was the first Bond director not to come from the British Commonwealth of Nations, although he noted Bond's mother is Swiss, making him somewhat appropriate to handle the British icon. The director collaborated strongly with Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, noting they only blocked two very expensive ideas he had. The director found Casino Royale's 144 minute running time too long, and wanted his follow-up to be "tight and fast [...] like a bullet."

Haggis, Forster and Wilson rewrote the story from scratch. Haggis said he completed his script two hours before the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike officially began. Forster noted a running theme in his films were emotionally repressed protagonists, and the theme of the picture would be Bond learning to trust after feeling betrayed by Vesper. Forster said he created the Camille character as a strong female counterpart to Bond rather than a casual love interest: she openly shows emotions similar to those which Bond experiences but is unable to express. Haggis located his draft's climax in the Swiss Alps, but Forster wanted the action sequences to be based around the four classical elements of earth, water, air and fire. The decision to homage Goldfinger in Fields's death came about as Forster wanted to show oil had replaced gold as the most precious material. The producers rejected Haggis's idea that Vesper Lynd had a child, because "Bond was an orphan [...] Once he finds the kid, Bond can't just leave the kid."

During filming, after the strike ended, Forster read a spec script by Joshua Zetumer, which he liked, and hired him to reshape scenes for the later parts of the shoot, which the director was still unsatisfied with. Forster had the actors rehearse their scenes, as he liked to film scenes continually. Zetumer rewrote dialogue depending on the actors' ideas each day.

The character of MI6 Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton) is a tribute to the Bond girls of the 1960s, notably Tracy Bond from On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and Goldfinger (1964)'s Pussy Galore. Arterton's character is found dead covered in oil - a call back to a similar discovery in Goldfinger. In that film the victim is covered in gold. Both bodies are also found in similar locations and positions. The media went onto label this scene "Oilfinger". Arterton filmed the scene on her first day of filming for the movie.

The media in 2008 reported that Arterton once had six fingers on each hand. This is a condition known as polydactyly. She called it her "little oddity". Bond villains have long been famous for having some kind of physiological dysfunction. To date, no Bond movie villain characters have had this trait, though Dr. No had metal hands, Carl Stromberg in The Spy Who Loved Me had webbed-hands. Lee Fu-Chu in the Bond novel Brokenclaw was born with his left hand's thumb on the opposite side of his palm, whilst the villain in Sebastian Faulks' Devil May Care has a monkey's paw.