Casino Royale is a 2006 , the twenty-first in the , and the third screen adaptation of 's 1953 . Directed by and written by and , it is the first film to star as fictional agent , and the first Eon-produced Bond film co-distributed by . Following , Eon Productions decided to the series, allowing them to show a less experienced, more vulnerable Bond.
Casino Royale takes place at the beginning of Bond's career as Agent 007, as he is earning his . The plot has Bond on an assignment to bankrupt () in a high-stakes game at the Casino Royale in . Bond falls in love with (), a treasury employee assigned to provide the money he needs for the game. The film begins a that continues through all of Craig's Bond films, culminating in (2021).
Casting involved a widespread search for a new actor to succeed as James Bond; the choice of Craig, announced in October 2005, drew controversy. took place in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Italy, and the United Kingdom, with interior sets built at and .
Casino Royale premiered at the on 14 November 2006. It received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with reviewers highlighting Craig's reinvention of the character and its departure from the tropes of previous Bond films. It earned over $616 million worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing until the release of in 2012. It was followed by (2008).
operative James Bond gains his license to kill and promotion to status by assassinating the traitorous Dryden and his contact at the British Embassy in Prague. In Uganda, introduces Steven Obanno, a high-ranking member of the , to , an Albanian private banker to terrorists. Obanno entrusts Le Chiffre with a large sum of money to invest; Le Chiffre the stock of aerospace manufacturer Skyfleet using insider knowledge of a terrorist attack.
In Madagascar, Bond blows up an embassy in the course of killing bomb-maker Mollaka. MI6 chief admonishes Bond for causing an international incident and ignoring her orders to capture Mollaka alive. Using information captured from Mollaka, Bond is led to corrupt Greek official Alex Dimitrios in the Bahamas, who had hired Mollaka at Le Chiffre's request. After winning his Aston Martin DB5 in a poker game and seducing Dimitrios' wife Solange, Bond pursues Dimitrios to Miami and kills him, then chases down the new attacker Dimitrios has hired. Bond thwarts the destruction of Skyfleet's prototype airliner, costing Le Chiffre his hundred-million dollar investment. Surmising that somebody talked, he tortures Solange to death.