And any audience familiar with that 2008 film will know that other than staging an early scene in Siena, it bears almost no resemblance to the movie Wilson eventually produced. This was the earliest idea for the movie that became Quantum of Solace. “The job’s done, the bitch is dead,” Bond tersely mutters, unconvincingly posing as a tough guy misogynist who doesn’t care about Vesper. If you don’t recall, Craig’s debut as 007 recreated the bitter denouement from Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel, with Bond realizing the woman he loved, Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, onscreen) was dead, and that she had betrayed him due to blackmail by a hidden enemy. So even as Casino Royale was still in pre-production, Wilson took longtime Bond scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade aside to make sure that the next Bond movie would spring smoothly out of Casino Royale’s ending.

While audiences only realized how great Daniel Craig was in the tuxedo after that ambitious reboot landed in cinemas in November 2006, the filmmakers long recognized they were making something special.

Wilson, the longtime producer of the James Bond movie franchise and co-steward of the 007 brand (alongside his half-sister Barbara Broccoli), always had a clear vision for the film that would follow Casino Royale.

Movie after casino royale