Production
Casino Royale was previously produced as a 1954 television episode and a 1967 satirical film. 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 the flavour of Ian Fleming's original Bond novels. 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."
Director Quentin Tarantino expressed interest in directing an adaptation of Casino Royale, although he did not follow this up with Eon. Tarantino also expressed interest in Casino Royale after Pulp Fiction. He claims to have worked behind the scenes with the Fleming family, and believed this was the reason why filmmakers finally went ahead with Casino Royale. Tarantino also said, he would have set it in the 1950s, like the novel, would have filmed it in black-and-white and would have only made it with Pierce Brosnan as Bond. In February 2005, Martin Campbell was announced as the film's director. Later in 2005, Sony led a consortium that purchased MGM, allowing Sony to gain distribution rights starting with the film.
Eon admitted that they had relied too heavily on CGI effects in the more recent films, particularly Die Another Day, and were keen to accomplish the stunts in Casino Royale "the old fashioned way". In keeping with this drive for more realism, screenwriters Purvis, Wade and Haggis wanted the script to follow as closely as possible to the original 1953 novel, keeping Fleming's darker storyline and characterisation of Bond.
Casino Royale became the first Bond film to take its title from a Fleming novel or short story since 1987's The Living Daylights. It is also the first Bond film since then not to be adapted as a novelisation. Instead, a film tie-in edition of Fleming's original novel was published.
Read more about this topic: Casino Royale (2006 film)
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