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''Casino Royale'': Inside the big bet on the new 007 | 13533__eva_l
ALL ABOUT EVA French actress Green was tapped as the latest Bond girl after filming began
Eva Green: Jay Maidment

Of course, some things about Bond never change. In Casino Royale, he still carries a license to kill (although not so many lethal gadgets), takes orders from ''M'' (Judi Dench, the only familiar face returning from previous Bond movies), and invariably goes for the girl with the bodacious, um, accent (this time even getting his heart — among other body parts — broken by French actress Eva Green). Still, make no mistake, this is not your father's 007. In some ways, it's more like your grandfather's. ''We're going back to the character Ian Fleming originally conceived,'' says Barbara Broccoli, producer of the series along with Michael Wilson (Broccoli's half brother and stepson of the franchise's late cofounder Albert ''Cubby'' Broccoli). ''It's not a period piece or anything like that. It's set today, right now, and it's got all the action fans have come to expect from the movies. But we're getting back to the essence of Bond, to the Bond in Fleming's first 007 novel.''

Actually, that original novel is hardly the most action-packed in Fleming's oeuvre — the drama essentially hinges on a high-stakes game of baccarat. And it has been (very loosely) adapted before, in 1954 as a live TV drama on Climax! (with a crew-cutted Barry Nelson playing American agent Jimmy Bond), and again in 1967 as a big-screen spoof (with Woody Allen as the diabolically nebbishy Dr. Noah). But now, with this $150 million-plus production, shot over six months at a half dozen locations around the globe, Casino Royale is finally becoming part of the official canon — and a hugely ambitious part at that. As if the previous 20 films never existed, this latest will push the reset button on the whole series, reintroducing Bond to audiences as if for the first time with the tale of his maiden mission as a double-0 agent. Darker and more violent (in one torture scene that actually does come from the novel, Bond's testicles are...oh, but let's not spoil the surprise), with a story line involving no hollowed-out volcanoes or henchmen with oversize orthodontia (only a terrorist financier named Le Chiffre, played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who Bond is sent to bankrupt at a high-stakes game of Texas Hold 'Em), Royale is a return to a more serious, realistic 007, what Broccoli calls ''classic Bond.''

Obviously, it's an enormous gamble, especially since the franchise hasn't exactly been losing money lately (the last Bond movie, 2002's Die Another Day, grossed $432 million worldwide). But Broccoli and her brother, who used to be famously reluctant to tinker with the franchise's formula, are now convinced it's time to take a risk. Especially since they couldn't think of anything else to do. ''After the last film, we spent eight months trying to come up with a story, but just couldn't,'' says Wilson. ''The movies had become so fantastical — with invisible cars and stuff like that — there was just no way to continue in that same vein. There was nothing new left to do. So we decided to start all over with the story we've always wanted to tell — how Bond became Bond in the first place.''

And they'll get right back to telling that story, just as soon as they chase the hang glider away.


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