Casino Royale was released in 2006 as the 21st official James Bond film produced by Eon Productions. Directed by Martin Campbell, the film stripped Bond back to his origins, telling the story of how a blunt instrument became Britain’s most famous secret agent. With Daniel Craig in the lead, Eva Green as the unforgettable Vesper Lynd, and Mads Mikkelsen as the blood-weeping Le Chiffre, the film earned critical acclaim and became the highest-grossing Bond movie of its time. The production was full of fascinating stories, from a casting process that made tabloid headlines to stunts that broke world records. We’re telling that behind the scenes tale now with 40 huge facts about Casino Royale. You can hear us discuss the film on the All The Right Movies podcast, available now on Spotify, YouTube, and our website.

1. It took over 50 years for the first novel to reach the big screen

Casino Royale was the first James Bond novel that 007 creator Ian Fleming ever wrote, published back in 1953. The inspiration came from Fleming’s own wartime experience. While serving in British Intelligence during World War II, Fleming had visited the Casino Estoril in Lisbon. Portugal was neutral during the war and had become a central hub for spies on both sides. Fleming learned that German agents frequented the Estoril and apparently devised a plan to bankrupt them at the tables, then recruit them as double agents by having British Intelligence pay off their debts. That plan never came to fruition, but the Estoril planted the seed for what would become the Casino Royale.

2. Bond’s first screen appearance wasn’t quite the one we know

Before Eon got anywhere near Casino Royale, the story had already been adapted twice. CBS bought the television rights in 1954, and the first production was an episode of Climax!, an anthology drama series on the American network. In that version, the villainous Le Chiffre was played by Peter Lorre, Linda Christian played a composite character called Valerie Mathis, and Bond was played by an American actor called Barry Nelson.

The film rights, meanwhile, were owned by Charles K. Feldman, a major Hollywood producer behind films like A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and The Seven Year Itch (1955). When the Sean Connery Bond films became a huge success in the 1960s, Feldman put Casino Royale into production with Columbia Pictures, but as a comedy. It arrived in 1967 with David Niven as Bond, Ursula Andress as Vesper, and Peter Sellers as a baccarat master called Evelyn Tremble. In 1989, Columbia was bought by Sony, and Sony approached MGM and offered them the rights to Casino Royale in exchange for Spider-Man, which MGM had at the time. The deal was done, and MGM and Eon put Fleming’s first novel straight into development.

3. Two directors were in the frame before Martin Campbell

Eon Productions was owned by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, the children of Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, who produced the classic Bond films. Before settling on Martin Campbell, Eon considered two other filmmakers for the director’s chair. Andrew Niccol, the New Zealand writer-director who had written The Truman Show (1998) and written and directed Gattaca (1997), was offered the gig but turned it down to make Lord of War (2005) instead. Matthew Vaughn was also considered on the strength of his work on Layer Cake (2004), but Eon decided he was too young at around 33. They turned to Campbell, who had previously directed GoldenEye (1995) for the franchise, and he later admitted he only agreed to do it because he had nothing else on at the time.

4. A Hollywood icon had his own radical vision for the film

When the rights reverted to MGM, Quentin Tarantino and Pierce Brosnan got together over cocktails one evening and decided they wanted to collaborate on Casino Royale. Tarantino’s pitch was bold: take Bond back to the Cold War 1960s, set the story after On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) so that Bond’s wife Tracy had just been killed, shoot the whole thing in black and white, ditch the John Barry theme music, strip out the one-liners, and layer in voice-over narration. He took the idea to Eon. They said no. Tarantino still took credit for the direction the franchise eventually went in, claiming that the reason they made Casino Royale all came down to him. (Ian Fleming might have had something to say about that.)

5. A scrapped spin-off helped get things off the ground

After Die Another Day (2002), there were persistent rumours about a spin-off film based on Halle Berry’s character, Jinx. They weren’t just rumours. Eon put the project into development, and screenwriters Robert Wade and Neal Purvis wrote drafts of a script that was essentially a Jinx origin story. The spin-off was eventually scrapped, but Barbara Broccoli had been impressed enough with Purvis and Wade’s work to approach them about adapting Casino Royale once the rights were secured. Paul Haggis, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Crash (2004), was brought in later for rewrites. His main contribution, apparently, was reworking the ending to make it less about Bond becoming 007 physically and more about how he becomes 007 emotionally.

6. Pierce Brosnan’s pay demands opened the door for a new Bond

Die Another Day, despite its mixed critical reception, had actually been the most commercially successful Bond film ever at the time, and Eon’s original plan was to bring Pierce Brosnan back for Casino Royale. However, Brosnan’s agents reportedly demanded a salary of $30 million plus royalties, which made the Broccolis reconsider. That figure prompted them to think about bringing in a younger, fresher actor to reinvigorate the franchise. What followed was one of the most closely watched casting processes in recent Hollywood history.

7. Over 200 actors were considered to play 007

Michael G. Wilson said they looked at over 200 actors for the role of Bond. The names in the mix included Dominic West and Gerard Butler. Media reports placed Jude Law, Orlando Bloom, and Karl Urban in contention. Martin Campbell later said that if Henry Cavill had been a few years older than 22 at the time, he may have been cast. The field was eventually whittled down to a final five who screen-tested. This group apparently included James Purefoy, Julian McMahon, and Ewan McGregor. McMahon later claimed it had come down to two people: himself and Daniel Craig. Purefoy, meanwhile, described his own screen test as ‘a disaster.’ According to other reports, Eric Bana, Hugh Jackman, and George Clooney all turned down the role.

8. Craig initially said no to playing Bond

When Daniel Craig was first approached about auditioning for 007, he said he wasn’t interested. He thought the films had become stale and formulaic. What changed his mind was reading a version of the script, which convinced him this would be a different kind of Bond film. He later said he found out he’d officially been cast while out shopping for groceries. Barbara Broccoli called him and said, “Over to you, kiddo.”

The tabloids were less kind. Different newspapers described Craig as “too short,” “too ugly,” and “too blonde.” The front page of the Daily Mirror ran with the headline “The name’s Bland — James Bland.” A website was even set up where disgruntled fans could download a complaint letter template, sign it, and send it to Eon. The letter read, “I am voicing my dissatisfaction that you have replaced Pierce Brosnan with such an unknown and unattractive actor.”

9. The actor put himself through considerable pain to prepare

To prepare for the role, Craig read every Ian Fleming Bond novel and spoke with Mossad and British Secret Service agents. He quit smoking and put on 20 pounds of muscle. His personal trainer was Simon Waterson, a former Royal Marine, who designed a punishing daily regime. Craig later said he was in a state of pain for almost all of the shoot. At one point, two of his front teeth were knocked out and his dentist had to fly from London to Prague to perform surgery. From that point on, Craig wore a mouth guard. All of which probably explains why he seemed to be threatening to quit playing Bond for about ten years before he actually did.

10. 007’s wardrobe came with a hefty price tag

Bond’s tuxedos and suits were made by Brioni, an Italian fashion house. His shirts came from the British company Turnbull & Asser. His sunglasses were by Persol, his cufflinks by luxury goods maker S.T. Dupont, his swimming trunks by Italian lingerie brand La Perla, his leather jacket by Giorgio Armani, and his watch was an Omega. The tuxedos Bond wears at the casino reportedly cost around $6,000 each.

11. Some very big names were considered for the Bond girl

Before Eva Green was cast as Vesper Lynd, a long list of high-profile actresses were in contention. Reports at the time placed Angelina Jolie, Eva Longoria, Vera Farmiga, and Keira Knightley among those who auditioned. Casting director Debbie McWilliams revealed that they very strongly considered both Scarlett Johansson and Charlize Theron for the part.

12. A veteran casting director found the perfect Vesper

McWilliams had been casting director on Bond films stretching back to For Your Eyes Only (1981), and she was keen on the idea of a French actress to play Vesper. Audrey Tautou, who had starred in Amélie (2001), was in contention at one point. Belgian actress Cécile de France also auditioned, but McWilliams said her English accent “wasn’t up to scratch.” When Eva Green came in, however, everyone loved her straight away, and she was cast.

13. Eva Green found drowning not so bad

The final act of Casino Royale takes place in Venice, where Vesper meets her tragic end in a sinking palazzo. To film the drowning sequence, Green had to spend minutes at a time underwater and underwent specialist diving training with a team of deep-sea divers. In an interview afterwards, Green said, “It was quite relaxing to drown. It was very, very nice.”

14. The bad guy was inspired by a real-life occultist

The villain of the piece – Le Chiffre – is quite different in Fleming’s original novel to the version Mads Mikkelsen plays on screen. In the book, the villain is described as being short at 5’8″ and over three hundred pounds, with small ears, small hands, and a lot of body hair. When Fleming wrote the character, he apparently based Le Chiffre on Aleister Crowley, the infamous early 1900s English occultist known for his involvement in ceremonial magic and the founding of the religion Thelema. Fleming and Crowley had met during World War II and Crowley died in 1947, but that single encounter made enough of an impression on Fleming that he used it as the basis for his villain a few years later. Interestingly, Crowley also bore a noticeable resemblance to the classic Bond villain Blofeld, which may or may not be a coincidence.

15. The first actor offered Le Chiffre turned it down

Before Mads Mikkelsen was approached, the role of Le Chiffre was offered to German actor Ulrich Matthes, who had played Joseph Goebbels in Downfall (2004), the acclaimed German-language film about Adolf Hitler’s final days. Matthes turned the part down because he was committed to a theatre production of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Mikkelsen was then approached and took on the role that would become one of the most memorable Bond villains of the modern era.

16. Le Chiffre’s weeping eye is based on a real medical condition

One of the most unsettling details about Mikkelsen’s Le Chiffre is his left eye, which weeps blood. This characteristic was added for the film and is based on a real condition called haemolacria, where blood is discharged from the tear ducts. Mikkelsen explained, “High blood pressure occasionally makes people bleed through their eyes, which is kind of scary.”

There’s a subtle visual touch, too: Le Chiffre’s partner Valenka wears her hair to cover her left eye, the same eye that Le Chiffre has the problem with. It functions as a quiet indicator of his controlling nature, as if he’s made her mirror his own insecurity.

17. A legendary spy novelist was a key influence

Paul Haggis said his biggest influence when rewriting the screenplay wasn’t Ian Fleming but John le Carré, the British author of classic espionage novels like The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1963) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974). Le Carré had served in MI6 for real and had written his novels partly in response to Fleming’s, aiming to show what secret service life was actually like. Le Carré was also a huge influence on Robert Ludlum, who wrote the Bourne series of novels, adapted as The Bourne Identity (2001), which in turn influenced the grittier, more realistic approach taken with Casino Royale.

18. The writers were given two non-negotiable elements from the novel

Casino Royale was the first time a Fleming novel had been adapted by Eon since Moonraker (1979), and the writers did make some changes for the screen. In the book, the card game played at the casino is baccarat, not poker. This was changed to Texas Hold ‘Em for the film as the producers thought modern audiences would understand it more readily.

When Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson first briefed Purvis and Wade, though, they told them there were two elements from the novel that absolutely had to be in the film. The first was Le Chiffre’s torture of Bond. The second was the novel’s final line: “The job’s done. The bitch is dead.” Vesper’s death was different in the book, though. Overcome with guilt for betraying Bond, she committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills and left him a note pledging her love. For the film, this was changed to the drowning sequence in Venice.

19. A rights dispute kept SPECTRE out of the film

In Fleming’s novels, the global criminal organisation working against MI6 is SPECTRE. The filmmakers wanted to use this in Casino Royale, but the rights to SPECTRE, Blofeld, and the novel Thunderball were owned by film producer Kevin McClory. This legal complication is what led to the creation of Quantum, the shadowy organisation that would feature in the sequel Quantum of Solace (2008). McClory passed away in 2006, and a few years later his estate settled with MGM and Eon. That’s why the fourth Daniel Craig Bond film was titled Spectre (2015).

Also, when Fleming completed the first draft of Casino Royale, he celebrated by treating himself to a gold-plated typewriter. It was sold in 1995 to an anonymous bidder, and there were rumours the buyer was Pierce Brosnan. It fetched £56,000, making it the most expensive typewriter ever sold at the time. Fleming’s record didn’t last forever, though: American novelist Cormac McCarthy’s typewriter went for $254,000 in 2009.

20. The title song nearly included the words ‘Casino Royale’

The title song, “You Know My Name,” was performed by Chris Cornell, the late frontman of rock bands Soundgarden and Audioslave. Cornell said the song doesn’t mention the name of the film because he couldn’t imagine it fitting naturally into a lyric. He explained, “Casino Royale doesn’t make a good rock title, but I would write a song called Octopussy just for fun.”

21. The opening credits broke a Bond tradition

The opening credits sequence was created by Daniel Kleinman, a graphic designer and music video director who had previously worked with Madonna, Fleetwood Mac, Simple Minds, and Adam Ant. Kleinman took his inspiration from the cover of the 1953 first edition of Casino Royale, which featured the design of a Nine of Hearts playing card with the hearts dripping blood. The sequence was notable for being the first Bond credits not to include silhouettes of naked women. Kleinman said he made this choice because he thought it went against the narrative of Bond falling in love.

22. A documentary inspired one of the best action sequences

Early in Casino Royale, Bond chases a bomb-maker called Mollaka through a construction site in a breathtaking sequence of free-running and physical stunts. Mollaka was played by Sébastien Foucan, the founder of freerunning, a discipline that developed from parkour and incorporates flips, dance moves, and acrobatic elements into the art of getting from point A to point B as efficiently as possible. Foucan had featured in a 2003 documentary called Jump London, and it was seeing him in that programme that gave screenwriters Purvis and Wade the idea for the sequence.

Foucan said freerunning isn’t a sport but an art form, and some of Mollaka’s moves in the film are extraordinary, from running up scaffolding to bouncing off the walls of an elevator shaft. There’s a nice character detail, too: Mollaka is missing a couple of fingers, presumably from bomb explosions. In the script, the character was originally called “Two Fingers” before they gave him a proper name.

23. The Madagascar chase was filmed at an abandoned hotel

The construction site chase is set in Madagascar but was actually filmed on New Providence Island in the Bahamas. The location was a hotel that had started being built in the 1970s but had been abandoned before completion. Producer Michael G. Wilson found the site and the crew added scaffolding to make it look like it was still under construction. The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) had also filmed on New Providence Island years earlier.

During filming of the beach scene where Bond first encounters Solange, played by Italian actress Caterina Murino, there was a complication. Murino had injured her leg after falling from a horse, and Martin Campbell wanted to use a body double. Murino insisted on doing it herself, saying it was her classic Bond girl moment.

24. A poker player had appeared with Bond 40 years earlier

During the poker game in Madagascar, there is an older woman sitting to the left of Dimitrios at the table. She was played by an actress called Diane Hartford, and this was her second Bond film. She had previously appeared in Thunderball (1965), where Sean Connery dances with her in a nightclub scene.

25. Bond’s most famous moment was a complete accident

One of the most iconic images from Casino Royale is Bond emerging from the ocean in a pair of tight blue swimming trunks, deliberately echoing Ursula Andress’s famous beach scene in Dr. No (1962). Except it wasn’t planned at all. Craig said the script called for Bond to spot Solange on the beach and simply float off in the water. When they were filming, however, Craig tripped over a sandbank and improvised by standing up and walking out of the sea. The shot went on to be used in every trailer and across all of the marketing materials. Craig said he realised straight away it would be compared to the Andress moment, but added, “I didn’t think I’d be haunted by it for the rest of my life.”

26. The airport sequence was stitched together from three countries

The tense airport sequence, where Bond races to stop a bomber from destroying a prototype airliner, was filmed across three separate locations: Dunsfold Park Aerodrome in England, Ruzyně International Airport in Prague, and Nassau International Airport in the Bahamas. If you look closely, director Martin Campbell makes a cameo appearance in the sequence too. He plays the truck driver who the bomber kills by breaking his neck.

27. A spectacular stunt involved throwing a police car through the air

One of the standout shots during the airport sequence is a police car being blown through the air by an explosion. Chris Corbould, the special effects supervisor who had previously worked on the vehicle stunts for Licence to Kill (1989), devised the method. His team attached the police car to a crane rig and essentially yanked it through the air. The only CGI used in the shot was to digitally remove the ropes and wires. Everything else was done in-camera.

28. Two blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos are hidden in the film

There are a couple of cameos tucked into Casino Royale that are easy to miss. The woman in the tennis outfit who smiles at Bond in the Bahamas is Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio. And British entrepreneur Richard Branson shows up at Miami airport, getting frisked by security when Bond first arrives. Branson was a big Bond fan and apparently asked for a cameo in return for allowing one of his Virgin Atlantic planes to appear in the film.

When British Airways showed Casino Royale on their flights, they made one edit to the film: they removed Richard Branson.

29. A real-life war criminal inspired one of the villains

Steven Obanno, the Ugandan warlord who menaces Le Chiffre over his lost money, was played by Ivorian actor Isaach de Bankolé. The character was reportedly based on Joseph Kony, a Ugandan militant leader who had been charged with war crimes including the abduction and forced recruitment of child soldiers. Kony had been in the international spotlight not long before the film’s release.

30. Daniel Craig changed the shower scene

After Bond and Vesper survive the brutal stairwell fight with Obanno, we find Vesper sitting fully clothed in the shower, traumatised and scrubbing blood from her hands. Bond sits beside her and gently puts her fingers in his mouth. It’s one of the most intimate and human moments in the entire franchise. The scene was shot in a single take, and in the original script, Vesper was scripted to be wearing just her underwear. It was Daniel Craig who suggested she should be fully clothed instead, to make the moment feel more real and emotionally raw.

31. Bond’s drink order is lifted word for word from the novel

When Bond orders his first vodka martini at the Casino Royale, he asks for “three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel.” It’s word for word how Bond orders his first martini in Fleming’s 1953 novel. Fleming created the drink specifically for the book, and as we see in the film, it’s called a Vesper Martini.

Kina Lillet has since been discontinued, so the closest you can get today is three measures of Gordon’s gin, one measure of vodka, and half a measure of Lillet Blanc.

32. The card dealer got the job by answering the phone

The poker dealer at the Casino Royale was played by an Austrian actor called Andreas Daniel. When the production was looking for someone who could deal cards convincingly, they started calling around casinos. By chance, Daniel was working at a casino and answered the phone when they rang. He told them, “You’re looking for a card dealer? You just found him.” There’s a nice detail in the finished film, too: when Bond wins the final hand, he gives the dealer a tip and says, “For you.” That chip is worth half a million dollars. The dealer simply replies, “Thanks very much.”

33. The torture scene used a real nautical tool

In one of the film’s most wince-inducing sequences, Le Chiffre ties Bond to a bottomless chair and strikes him repeatedly with a knotted rope. That rope is a seaman’s knot designed for throwing a line from one boat to another. The knot is woven around a weighted shot that weighs several pounds. In the novel, though, the instrument of torture was different: Le Chiffre uses a carpet beater on Bond’s testicles.

34. The car flip broke a world record

Late in the film, Bond is chasing Le Chiffre’s men after they kidnap Vesper and swerves his Aston Martin DBS to avoid hitting her. The car flips violently across the road in one of the most spectacular stunts in Bond history. The effects team achieved this by installing an air cannon underneath the car and firing it while a stunt driver was inside. They shot the sequence three times, destroying three Aston Martins worth $300,000 each in the process. In the take they used, the car flipped over seven times, which entered the Guinness Book of Records as a world record for the most rolls in a car stunt. Initially, the team had tried to flip the car naturally by having the stunt driver make sudden wheel turns, but because the DBS was designed as a racing car with high downforce, it resisted flipping. The air cannon solved the problem.

35. A yacht hadn’t been seen on Venice’s Grand Canal for centuries

When Bond and Vesper sail into Venice on Bond’s yacht, a Spirit 54, the production had to obtain special permissions from the Venetian authorities to navigate the Grand Canal. There were no records of the last time a pleasure yacht had sailed along the canal, but it was believed to be around 300 years earlier. The owner of Spirit Yachts, Sean McMillan, was lying on the floor of the yacht shouting instructions at Daniel Craig while they filmed the scene. McMillan later said that Casino Royale gave the company a huge boost: on the back of the film, they sold three yachts. Which, given their price tag (in the millions), says something about the clientele.

36. The sinking palazzo was inspired by a modern world wonder

The climactic sequence in Venice, where a palazzo begins to sink as Bond fights to save Vesper, was conceived when screenwriters Purvis and Wade saw footage of the Leaning Tower of Pisa having its foundations stabilised. In the report, the tower was propped up by enormous bladders full of air, and this gave them the idea for the building’s collapse. Purvis said they chose Venice as the setting because they thought it was thematically fitting for Bond and Vesper’s love to sink figuratively and literally.

The set for the interior of the sinking building was 45 feet by 40 feet and 45 feet high, weighing 90 tons. It was built around the underwater Paddock Tank on the 007 stage at Pinewood Studios and, using computer-controlled hydraulics, could sink 16 feet. A one-third scale miniature of the building was also constructed for exterior shots, filmed against a blue screen with the Venice background added digitally. It took three weeks of nine-hour days to shoot the Venice sequences. The interior scenes in the building were the last thing filmed in the entire production, and Martin Campbell said the set was finished so late that they had to go in and film without a storyboard.

37. The soundstage burned down just after filming wrapped

Just one week after the production finished shooting, the 007 stage at Pinewood Studios caught fire and burned to the ground while three crew members were dismantling the set. The same thing had happened at Pinewood once before, ahead of filming on A View to a Kill (1985). This time shooting was already wrapped, but some additional damage was caused because people initially didn’t call the fire service. They had assumed the explosions were special effects for the film.

38. The final suit is a callback to a Bond classic

The three-piece navy blue suit Bond wears in the film’s final scene, when he delivers the famous line “The name’s Bond. James Bond,” is the same style as the grey suit worn by Sean Connery in Goldfinger (1964). A quiet nod to the past from a film that had spent two hours reinventing the future of the franchise.

39. It was the first Bond to screen in mainland China

Casino Royale was the first James Bond film to be shown in mainland Chinese cinemas. To familiarise audiences with the character, Eon produced a leaflet called “The Seven Rules to Receive Double-0 Status.” The rules were:

• You don’t fear death, and won’t give in to torture.
• You have Olympic-level shooting skills.
• Even if you double-cross your own parents, you will never double-cross the organisation.
• You have knowledge that would surprise even a scholar, and a sense of humour that would make even a bad girl grin.
• You have the sociability of a lamb but remain a lone wolf.
• You have the highest level of experience with alcohol, gambling, cars, and food.]
• You can fall in love, but you can never love.

40. The gamble paid off spectacularly

On a budget of $150 million, Casino Royale grossed $616 million at the worldwide box office. It was the highest-grossing film in the UK that year and the highest-grossing Bond film ever made, until Skyfall (2012) surpassed it. Globally, it was the fourth biggest film of 2006, behind Ice Age: The Meltdown, The Da Vinci Code, and, at number one, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a 94% approval rating from critics and 90% from audiences, making it the fourth highest-rated Bond film with critics after Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), and Goldfinger. With audiences, it ranks number one. On IMDb, it has an 8.0 out of 10, again the highest in the Bond series.

And you’ve reached the end – 40 huge facts about Casino Royale, a film that changed what it meant to be James Bond. Please share on your social media channels, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for lots of great video content.