FAQ for
Casino Royale (2006)

The film isn't a prequel in the traditional sense, as it is not set in the time period before Dr. No; it is very much set in the present. However, it is a prequel in respect to Bond's life, as it depicts his career before the events of Dr No - Casino Royale is his first assignment as 007. Although there is no official line from Sony Pictures, it could be described as a 'reboot' of the franchise.

Over the years MGM/UA has filmed all of the James Bond books - but not in chronological order. Therefore it is hard to make a real timeline. Even though MGM/UA wanted to begin with Casino Royale it was impossible since they couldn't get the filming rights from the company which did the American TV-movie in the 1950's. Otherwise Casino Royale would have been the first James Bond instead of Dr. No.

-Le Chiffre shorted the stock. Shorting a stock means you sell a stock you do not yet own (the stock is usually owned by one of the broker's other clients) in anticipation that the stock's price will fall. The aim is to sell the stock at the current price, then buy the stock in the future at a lower price. However, if the price of the stock actually goes up, you will lose money. Le Chiffre expected the stock to fall due to his plan to bomb the plane.

-after the plan was not successful he was informed that his PUTS had expired (therefore losing money).

-Puts are options on stock that allow you to sell stock at a predetermined price. For e.g.: You buy 1 contract (each contract = 100 shares) of Puts of Skyfleet @ a strike price of $10. This expires let's say, April 21st and shares of Skyfleet right now are trading @ $10. IF between now and April 21 the stock falls BELOW $10, to say $8, the owner of the puts can then buy Skyfleet @ $8 and excercise his option for the right to SELL it @ $10. Giving him a $2 profit per share ($2 x 100 = $200). Call options work in the opposite way (stock goes UP, you make money). In practice however, any profit is made in the option's change in price - e.g. Assuming for simplicity the put option above would have a flat-fee cost $1 to buy @ $10 when the stock price is actually $10; when the price fell to $8, the owner of the option would, instead of selling stock (which he may even not own), sell the option at fee + profit on exercise = $1 + $2 = $3, thus making a profit of $2 on a $1 investment, i.e. 200%.

However, having PUTS and shorting stocks are 2 DIFFERENT things. For a put option, you can't lose more money than you spent to "buy" the option to sell at a given price. When you short stock, you lose (or gain) the difference between the price of the stock when you sold it and the price at which you must buy it.

If you pay $50 to buy a put option allowing you to sell a stock at a given price and the stock goes above your stricke price, then you simply don't exercise the option and all you lose is the $50 you spent for the option.

However, if you short the stock by selling 1,000 shares of stock you don't yet own (essentially on loan from someone else) at, let's say, $10, you MUST provide that stock. If the stock increases in price to $15 per share, you would have to buy 1,000 shares at the current price of $15 per share ($15,000). Given that you've sold the stock for a total of only $10,000, you have lost $5,000.

Options are profitable for insider dealing on short-term information since they involve a smaller investment and the "fee" on short-term options are relatively low.

Therefore, that part of the movie was technically wrong in terminology.

No, the spoof was, very loosely, based on the same source material by Ian Fleming, but this film is more in-line with the Dr. No/FRWL sort of film and far from spoof.

Because, as stated earlier, this is separate from the past Bonds, so it doesn't matter if Bond has a female boss. Let's just say when Bond meets her in this time line that it is different than when we saw Brosnan's Bond meeting her in GoldenEye.

Mr. White is a middleman of a mysterious terrorist organisation (which replaces the novel's SMERSH). His henchmen are "Tall Man" and Gettler. Vesper has been blackmailed into working with this organisation.

Le Chiffre is a private banker to whoever needs money laundering. In the film, he is working with Mr. White's organisation to profit from acts of terror. His main man is Alex Dimitrios; other henchmen are named Leo, Bobbie, Jochum, Kratt, and Valenka.

Obanno is a high ranking member of the Lord's Resistance Army, with various other freedom fighters under him. He entrusts $100 million with Le Chiffre, who loses the money when Bond foils his Skyfleet plot and tries to recoup his losses by staging the poker tournament.

Dimitrios is a government contractor and a dealer in arms and information. He is an associate of Le Chiffre. Two other independents are seen working for Le Chiffre through Dimitrios: Mollaka, Bond's target in Madagascar; and Carlos, the terrorist at the airport.

Although there was speculation that this was Le Chiffre, it is in fact a different character called Gettler. This man appears to be working for Mr White or at least the same organisation.

Leiter is in the film because Bond first met him in in the 1953 novel, 'Casino Royale'. While it is true that in the film series Bond first meets Leiter in 'Dr. No', in the book series Leiter had already been in several missions with Bond - going as far as losing an arm and a leg in 'Live and Let Die' (which was depicted in the film 'License to Kill').

No. Brosnan's contract had expired and, although EON spent 18 months negotiating with him, during which time he reportedly asked for a salary and gross percentage deal worth $42.5m and was highly critical of the producers in several interviews, neither side could agree on terms.

According to the producers, Craig was their only choice for the new Bond. It is believed, however, that Hugh Jackman was offered the part, but turned it down. Rumours that Clive Owen was offered the part were vigorously denied both by Owen and EON. Dougray Scott had met with producers, according to an interview with BBC's Jonathan Ross, but it's not certain that he was offered the part. Henry Cavill, James Purefoy, Julian McMahon, and Goran Visnjic were all screen tested (with English actress Camilla Power playing the Bond girl). Apparently, all four only found out they had lost the part when Daniel Craig's press conference took place.

The rumour mill also churned out Colin Salmon as the first black Bond; he appeared in "Tomorrow Never Dies", "The World is Not Enough" and "Die Another Day" as Charles Robinson.

Yes, he holds a UK Driving Licence. "That story about the stick shift was ludicrous," adds Barbara Broccoli, who produces the Bond franchise with half brother Michael G. Wilson. "Everybody drives a stick in England. You have to be able to in order to get an unrestricted license over there."

In previous films, such as 'Munich', Craig is clearly seen driving stick.

No. A crown did become loose during the shoot, though. Director Martin Campbell explains, "No, his teeth didn't get knocked out. What happened was that one of his caps came loose while we were filming in Prague. A local dentist came to the set, put a bit of glue on it, and that was that. The whole thing took 10 minutes."

No. While it is true that Daniel Craig did get a sunburn, it was also true that practically everyone else on the shoot did, too. Craig did not get heat rash, and the production wasn't stopped for any length of time.

No. Although some homophobic anti-Craig websites reported rumors of a sex scene between Bond and Felix Leiter, this was purely an invention. Later reports attributing a quote to Craig that he wanted a gay scene in the next Bond film were equally untrue and were, in fact, quotes regarding his role in 'Infamous' that were taken out of context.

The film is set in July 2006 (as noted on various cell phones and computer screens within the film).

Le Chiffre originally worked for a Soviet assassination bureau called SMERSH. Since the film is not set during the Cold War, he was changed to a terrorist financier. Bond's card game of choice, and the game featured in the novel, was Baccarat. In the twenty-first century, Texas Hold 'Em has replaced Baccarat as the popular game played in casinos, so the story was changed accordingly.

The first 55 minutes are totally new, but the motivation behind them are true to the spirit of the book: LeChiffre invests a lot of money which does not belong to him, loses it, then sets up a high-stakes card game to try to win it back. The novel presents this as background information in a dossier. The novel begins (more or less) with Bond's arrival at Casino Royale. From this point, the film follows the book very closely, while adding in several new action scenes (stairwell fight, falling building). The poisoning scene is also new, but is loosely based on an attempt on Bond's life in the book. The torture scene, Bond's falling in love with Vesper, and her subsequent betrayal are all straight out of the book, the last line of which is "The bitch is dead now".

No. In the novel 'Casino Royale', the casino is set in the fictional town of Royale-les-Eaux, near Montreuil in northeastern France. In the film, the casino is located in Montenegro. Other locales in the film are Prague, Czech Republic; Mbale, Uganda; Venice and Lake Como, Italy; Miami, USA; London, UK; Madagascar; and the Bahamas.

No. "Royale" is a French word, which translates to "royal," "majestic," "kingly," or "regal" in English (the word "casino" is the same in both English and French). So, the name could conceivably translate to the "Royal Casino," the "King's Casino," or even "Casino Majestic." Also, the original story takes place in a fictional French town called Royale-les-Eaux, which could be another explanation for the casino's name. Of course, a place in French is feminine and deserves the 'e' at the end. A casino, however, is masculine, so the name should correctly be spelled "Casino Royal". One can only assume that the producers wanted to retain the familiar name from the novel, rather than go with something obscure purely for the sake of accuracy.

Look at the region formerly known as Yugoslavia; Montenegro is one of the former states and is now known as The Republic of Montenegro, formerly united with Serbia. And yes, it IS a real place.

We don't really know why the producers chose Montenegro. One possible explanation is that the former Yugoslav states once had a rather shady reputation regarding their banking systems. However, most of them cleaned up their act in the 1990s. Another possible reason is that it's cheaper to shoot in Eastern Europe than it is in France.

While it's possible that Montenegro was chosen because it's cheap and extremely beautiful (one only has to look at the town where filming was done to see why they would want to film in such a scenic setting), the Montenegro scenes were actually shot in the Czech Republic.

That part of the Balkan peninsula is situated conveniently between "East" and "West" and was a favored meeting place for Cold War spies of the Ian Fleming era.