MI6 operative James Bond earns his "licence to kill" and promotion to 00 agent status by assassinating the traitorous Dryden and his contact in Prague. In Uganda, Mr. White introduces Steven Obanno, a high-ranking member of the Lord's Resistance Army, to Le Chiffre, an Albanian private banker to terrorists. Obanno entrusts Le Chiffre with $100 million. Using knowledge of his upcoming terrorist attack on aerospace manufacturer Skyfleet, Le Chiffre shorts the company's stock.

In Madagascar, Bond destroys an embassy while capturing and then killing a bomb maker named Mollaka. MI6 chief M criticises Bond for causing an international incident and ignoring her orders to take Mollaka alive. Information on Mollaka's phone leads Bond to the Bahamas and corrupt Greek official Alex Dimitrios, who had hired Mollaka to bomb Skyfleet's prototype airliner at the request of Le Chiffre. After winning Dimitrios's vintage Aston Martin in a poker game and seducing his wife Solange, Bond pursues Dimitrios to Miami. Bond fights off an attack by Dimitrios and kills him. At the airport, Bond chases down the new bomber Dimitrios has hired and prevents the destruction of the Skyfleet airliner. With the Skyfleet stock secure, Le Chiffre loses Obanno's money. Realising that somebody talked about the terrorist plot, Le Chiffre tortures Solange to death.

To recoup his client's money, Le Chiffre organizes a Texas hold 'em tournament at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. MI6 enters Bond—the agency's best poker player—in the tournament, believing a defeat will force Le Chiffre to seek asylum with the British government in exchange for information on his clients. Bond is paired with Vesper Lynd, a British Treasury agent overseeing the $10 million buy-in. They meet their contact, René Mathis, in Montenegro. Obanno, furious that his money is missing, threatens Le Chiffre, but allows him to continue playing to win back the money. Obanno and his bodyguard attack Bond, who kills them both. Bond loses his $10 million stake after Le Chiffre is tipped off about his own tell, and Vesper refuses to authorize an additional $5 million for Bond to continue. Fellow player and CIA agent Felix Leiter stakes Bond the money in exchange for letting the CIA take Le Chiffre into custody. Le Chiffre's lover Valenka poisons Bond but Vesper rescues him. Bond returns to the game and wins the tournament. Le Chiffre kidnaps Vesper to trap Bond and takes them to an abandoned ship. He tortures Bond to reveal the password to the bank account holding the winnings, but Bond resists. Mr. White bursts in and kills Le Chiffre, but spares Bond and Vesper.

Bond awakens in hospital and recovers with Vesper. He has Mathis arrested, believing that he had tipped off Le Chiffre. Bond falls in love with Vesper and resigns from MI6, and the couple sail to Venice. When M reveals that his winnings were never transferred to the British treasury, Bond realizes that Vesper has betrayed him. He tracks her to an exchange of the money, where gunmen spot him and take her captive inside a Venetian palace undergoing restoration. Bond destroys the flotation devices, causing it to sink into the Grand Canal as he kills the shooters. Vesper is trapped in the elevator, and Bond dives into the canal to rescue her. Vesper locks herself in to prevent Bond from saving her and drowns. Bond attempts to resuscitate her, but fails, and Mr. White escapes with the money.

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Casino Royale had been produced as a 1954 television episode starring Barry Nelson as Bond and Peter Lorre as the villain Le Chiffre, as well as a non-canonical 1967 ensemble satirical film starring David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen. Eon Productions gained the rights to Casino Royale in 1999 after Sony Pictures Entertainment exchanged them for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (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. An early draft featured Bond backpacking in Madagascar and playing chess with Lord Lucan. As the drafts became closer to being finalized, the opening scene in which Bond earns his 00 license was originally going to consist of an adaptation of either the short stories "The Hildebrand Rarity" or "007 in New York." Rather than bombing the Skyfleet jet, there would have been a hijacking of a cruise ship in Cape Town.

Director Quentin Tarantino expressed interest in directing an adaptation of Casino Royale, but Eon was not interested. 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 1960s and would only have made it with Pierce Brosnan as Bond.

In February 2005, Martin Campbell, who previously directed GoldenEye (1995), was announced as the film's director. Campbell felt Purvis and Wade's draft needed a rewrite, and suggested hiring Paul Haggis whose main contribution was to rewrite the climax of the film. Haggis 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." Haggis also said they wanted "to do for Bond what Batman Begins did for Batman." Broccoli and Wilson thought that "Die Another Day had become too fantastical", feeling the next film should be more realistic. Later that same year, Sony led a consortium that purchased MGM, allowing Sony to gain distribution rights starting with the film. Broccoli also felt that frivolity didn't feel appropriate after the 9/11 attacks.

Eon believed that it had relied too heavily on computer-generated imagery effects in the more recent films, particularly Die Another Day, and was keen to accomplish the stunts in Casino Royale "the old fashioned way". In keeping with this drive for more realism, screenwriters Purvis, Wade and Haggi…

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Casino Royale premiered at the Odeon Leicester Square, the Odeon West End and the Empire simultaneously in London on 14 November 2006. It marked the 60th Royal Film Performance and benefited the Cinema & Television Benevolent Fund (CTBF), whose patron, Queen Elizabeth II, was in attendance with the Duke of Edinburgh. Along with the cast and crew, numerous celebrities and 5,000 paying guests were also in attendance with half the proceeds benefiting the CTBF.

Only two days following the premiere, unlicensed copies appeared for sale in London. "The rapid appearance of this film on the streets shows the sophistication and organisation behind film piracy in the UK," said Kieron Sharp, from the Federation Against Copyright Theft. Infringing copies of the DVD were selling for less than £1.57. Craig himself was offered such a DVD while walking anonymously through the streets of Beijing wearing a hat and glasses to avoid being identified.

In January 2007, Casino Royale became the first Bond film ever to be shown in mainland Chinese cinemas. The Chinese version was edited before release, with the reference to the Cold War re-dubbed and new dialogue added during the poker scene explaining the process of Texas hold 'em, as the game is less familiar in China (this addition is reminiscent of dialogue that was added to the 1954 American TV adaptation to explain the rules of baccarat, the game featured in the original book). Casino Royale has earned approximately $11.7 million in China since its opening on 30 January on 468 screens, including a record opening weekend collection for a non-Chinese film, with $1.5 million.

After critics dubbed Die Another Day "Buy Another Day" because of around 20 product placement deals, Eon limited their promotions for Casino Royale. Partners included Ford, Heineken (which Eva Green starred in adverts for), Smirnoff, Omega SA, Virgin Atlantic and Sony Ericsson.
Casino Royale was simultaneously released on DVD, UMD and Blu-ray on 16 March 2007. In the UK, Casino Royale was released on 16 March 2007 on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases broke sales records: the Region 1 Blu-ray Disc edition became the highest selling high-definition title to date, selling more than 100,000 copies since its release. The region 2 DVD edition achieved the record of fastest selling title for its first-week release. The UK DVD has continued to sell well, with 1,622,852 copies sold since 19 March. A copy of the Blu-ray Disc edition of Casino Royale was given out to the first 500,000 PAL PlayStation 3 owners who signed up to the PlayStation Network. The DVD was released in a separate two-disc widescreen and fullscreen editions, both of which includes the official music video for the film, and three documentaries detailing how Daniel Craig was chosen for the role of Bond, the filming, and an expanded version of the Bond Girls Are Forever documentary incorporating new interviews with Casino Royale cast members.

A three-disc edition of Casino Royale on DVD was released in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2008, coinciding with the cinema release of the sequel, Quantum of Solace (the following week in the United States). As well as features present from the 2007 release, the collector's edition contains an audio commentary, deleted scenes, featurettes and a storyboard-to-film comparison…

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