Overview of New Bond Film - Casino Royale

Promotional photo of James Bond and M in the upcoming Casino Royale Casino

Overview of the film
Principal photography for Casino Royale commenced on January 30, 2006 and concluded on July 21, 2006. The film was primarily shot at Barrandov Studios in Prague, with additional location shooting in the Czech Republic, The Bahamas, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Production returned to its traditional home of Pinewood Studios to complete the shooting schedule where it is currently in post-production.

Casino Royale will premiere at Odeon Leicester Square in London on November 14, 2006 and will be released in the United Kingdom and the United States on November 17; however, Sony Pictures has announced that a number of European, Middle Eastern, and East Asian countries will receive the film earlier — on November 15 and November 16. Japan, Italy, Argentina, and several other countries will not get to see the film until early 2007 [4].

Casino Royale is said to take James Bond "back to his roots" in a film that would be similar to From Russia with Love where the focus was on character and plot rather than high-tech gadgets and visual effects, two issues that were most criticised in The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Additionally, EON has admitted that they relied too heavily on CGI effects and are planning to accomplish the stunts in Casino Royale "the old fashioned way." [5] The move towards more action, bigger special effects, and CGI in recent Bond films was in part due to a need to compete at the time with big-budget action films that dominated the 1990s box office. However, the success of less grandiose action films such as The Bourne Identity in the last few years has suggested the time may be right for the Bond series to scale back as it did during the Roger Moore era with For Your Eyes Only, which followed special effects extravaganzas such as Moonraker and The Spy Who Loved Me. This is an acknowledged gamble for the series, as many previous "real world" Bond films, such as On Her Majesty's Secret Service and For Your Eyes Only, as well as the last Timothy Dalton entry, Licence to Kill, although they became fan favourites, underperformed at the box office when compared to the more lavish series entries.

One major exclusion from the film will be the absence of Q and Miss Moneypenny. They were not included in the screenplay, which will make this only the second Bond film without Q and the first without Moneypenny. Thus a new Moneypenny will not be cast for this film following Samantha Bond's retirement from the role. Likewise, John Cleese will not be making a return as Q. In October 2005 producer Michael G. Wilson stated that Moneypenny's and Q's omission was due to the characters not appearing in the novel; Moneypenny, however, was in the novel and had one line of dialogue, although Major Boothroyd, which the films transformed into the character Q, did not appear until several books later.