{"id":7229,"date":"2021-11-16T09:56:26","date_gmt":"2021-11-16T08:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiotimes.com\/?p=1504283"},"modified":"2021-11-16T10:14:10","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T09:14:10","slug":"bond-26-can-learn-a-vital-lesson-from-casino-royale-as-daniel-craigs-debut-turns-15","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/rss_feed\/bond-26-can-learn-a-vital-lesson-from-casino-royale-as-daniel-craigs-debut-turns-15\/","title":{"rendered":"Bond 26 can learn a vital lesson from Casino Royale as Daniel Craig\u2019s debut turns 15"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Morgan Jeffery\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 16 November 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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15 years ago today (16th November, 2021), the 21st James Bond film, Casino Royale, was released in UK cinemas: it earned rave reviews, became the franchise\u2019s highest-grossing entry at that point and eliminated any negative pre-publicity that had surrounded Daniel Craig\u2019s casting with the same kind of ruthless efficiency that his newly-minted agent 007 was immediately seen to display on-screen.<\/p>\n

A decade-and-a-half later, the release of No Time to Die<\/a> in late September drew to a close Craig\u2019s five-film era as Bond \u2013 a tenure which saw the film series rebuke the critics once again and reestablish itself as a major player in the world of modern blockbuster cinema. But when the time comes for producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson to take stock and consider where Bond should go next<\/a>, they\u2019d be wise to reflect on past successes and, specifically, to consider what it was about Casino Royale that worked so well.<\/p>\n

Now, this isn\u2019t a rallying cry to simply \u201cdo Casino Royale again\u201d \u2013 in fact, the biggest mistake that Bond 26 could make would be to replicate the look and feel of the Daniel Craig movies, successful though they might\u2019ve been. Instead, what the next 007 movie needs to mimic is the 2006 film\u2019s spirit of reinvention \u2013 in short, it needs to be as different from Casino Royale as Casino Royale was from Pierce Brosnan\u2019s final hurrah, 2002\u2019s extremely mixed bag Die Another Day.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to forget 15 years on how daring Casino Royale felt at the time, especially since the Daniel Craig era has since made subverting expectations and daring to go to places the franchise previously never would its stock in trade, culminating \u2013 perhaps inevitably \u2013 in the actual, not-fooling-honest death of James Bond<\/a>. Looking to reimagine the 44-year-old series like never before, Broccoli, Wilson, director Martin Campbell (who\u2019d previously relaunched Bond to great success, though in less subversive style, with 1995\u2019s Goldeneye) and screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis ditched much of what was familiar and what might at one time have been considered sacrosanct.<\/p>

Fronted by a steely but sympathetic Craig, who was ably supported by a sensational turn from Eva Green and the absolutely magnetic Mads Mikkelsen, the film loosely adapts Ian Fleming\u2019s story of Bond looking to financially cripple Le Chiffre \u00a0\u2013 an enemy agent who is bankrolling terrorists \u2013 over a game of cards, only for the situation to spiral wildly out of control as 007 is hit by a betrayal he never saw coming.<\/p>\n

Casino Royale was like nothing the series had offered us before \u2013 yes, gone were the gadgets and quips, but Bond had been here before, adopting a similar back-to-basics approach in the late 1980s when the tongue-in-cheek theatrics of the Roger Moore films gave way to a more sober portrayal of 007\u2019s world in two films starring Timothy Dalton. More striking even than the shift in tone was the ease with which Casino Royale did away with the opening gun-barrel sequence (at least in its traditional form), the brilliant inventor Q, Moneypenny and her playful relationship with Bond\u2026 you suspect even M might have been ditched if they (and audiences) weren\u2019t so fond of Judi Dench \u2013 and it\u2019s credit to the quality of the final product that not only did it wow critics and long-time Bond fans regardless but that it felt unquestionably Bondian despite the lack of those ingredients once thought untouchable and absolutely essential to the franchise formula.<\/p>\n

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2006 Danjaq, LLC and United Artists<\/i> <\/span>\n<\/div>\n

This willingness to be bold and audacious is what the next film would do well to lift from Casino Royale. The 007 films have always thrived on reinvention \u2013 the Sean Connery films evolved from Cold War era spy thrillers to wild spy-fi blockbusters, Roger Moore took Bond intergalactic amidst the Star Wars fever of the 1970s, with Timothy Dalton then bringing the character quite literally back down to Earth, while Pierce Brosnan ran the gamut from more personal, human stories to utterly outlandish action capers (and that was just in Die Another Day) \u2013 but Daniel Craig\u2019s first outing is perhaps the purest example of Bond being willing to strip the character to his bare bones and then rebuild in a way that works for modern audiences \u2013 and, crucially, the actor playing Bond.<\/p>\n

The temptation given the enormous critical and box office success of the Craig movies might be to simply produce a Craig-type movie but with a different actor \u2013 but to do so would be to ignore the best thing about Casino Royale and what allowed it and Craig to succeed. Give whoever picks up the baton next their own kind of Bond movie, let it reflect their strengths as a performer as Casino did Craig\u2019s. Do that and we\u2019d bet big on Bond\u2019s next 15 years being every bit as bright as the last.<\/p>\n

Read more about James Bond:<\/strong><\/p>\n