• Daniel Craig as James Bond: A British MI6 officer newly assigned 00 status, giving him a licence to kill. He is sent on a mission to arrest a bomb-maker in Madagascar, where he stumbles upon Le Chiffre's terrorist cell and is then sent to defeat him in a high-stakes poker game at Casino Royale.
• Eva Green as Vesper Lynd: A British Treasury agent who falls in love with James Bond.
• Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre: A banker who services many of the world's criminals and terrorists and associate partner of SPECTRE, he is a mathematical genius and expert chess player, using these skills when playing poker.
• Giancarlo Giannini as René Mathis: Bond's contact in Montenegro.
• Jesper Christensen as Mr. White: A liaison for an unnamed criminal organization (the nature of this group is explored more in the next film, Quantum of Solace).
• Judi Dench as M: The head of MI6. Although she feels she has promoted Bond too soon and chides him for his rash actions, she plays an important maternal figure in his life. Dench was the only cast member retained from the Pierce Brosnan films.
• Tobias Menzies as Villiers: M's young secretary at MI6 headquarters. His character's last name is a reference to James Villiers, who portrayed Bill Tanner in For Your Eyes Only, and to the character of Amherst Villiers in the original novel.
• Isaach de Bankolé as Steven Obanno: A leader of the Lord's Resistance Army, he is introduced to Le Chiffre by Mr. White to account his finances.
• Simon Abkarian as Alex Dimitrios: A contractor in the international criminal underworld and associate of Le Chiffre, he is based in the Bahamas.
• Ivana Miličević as Valenka: Le Chiffre's girlfriend and henchwoman, she accompanies him to the poker game.
• Caterina Murino as Solange Dimitrios: Dimitrios's wife; Bond seduces her, causing her unintentionally to reveal one of his plans. After Bond kills Dimitrios, she is found tortured and killed.
• Claudio Santamaria as Carlos: A terrorist employed by Le Chiffre to blow up an aircraft.
• Sébastien Foucan as Mollaka: A bomb-maker pursued by Bond through a construction site in Madagascar. Credited in opening title cards under "Free running stunts".
• Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter: A CIA operative, he is participating in the poker tournament while assisting Bond. This is the first Eon-produced Bond film in which Leiter is played by a black actor. (Leiter was played by black actor Bernie Casey in Never Say Never Again, which was not produced by Eon.)
Casino Royale includes a cameo by British entrepreneur Richard Branson (seen being TSA-screened at Miami International Airport). The cameo was cut out of the in-flight versions shown on British Airways' in-flight entertainment systems, and the Virgin Atlantic aircraft Branson supplied had its tail fin (bearing the company logo) obscured. Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio makes an uns…

Read more on Wikipedia

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…

Read more on Wikipedia

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…

Read more on Wikipedia