James Bond – Quentin Tarantino speaks out on almost directing Casino Royale | Films | Entertainment
It was 70 years ago that Ian Fleming published his first James Bond novel Casino Royale.
EON Productions was set to make an adaptation with Sean Connery but producer Charles K Feldman. who had acquired the rights couldn’t come to an agreement with the Bond producers so made a spoof adventure instead.
David Niven starred as an older 007 in the 1967 Casino Royale with Woody Allen and Peter Sellers, released the same year as the official You Only Live Twice.
It wasn’t until 2006 when the Bond franchise was rebooted with Daniel Craig that EON finally made their version.
Yet did you know that Quentin Tarantino had attempted to direct Casino Royale in a period setting before them?
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Speaking with Deadline, Tarantino said: “We reached out to the Ian Fleming people, and they had suggested that they still own the rights to Casino Royale. “And that’s what I wanted to do after Pulp Fiction was do my version of Casino Royale, and it would’ve taken place in the ’60s and wasn’t about a series of Bond movies.
“We would have cast an actor and be one and done. So I thought we could do this.”
Tarantino added: “But then it turned out that the Broccolis three years earlier figured out somebody was going to try to do what I did.
“And so what they did is they just made a blanket deal with the Fleming estate and said that: ‘We have the movie rights to everything he’s ever written. We’re going to just give you a bunch of money. This is for every single thing he’s ever written. If anybody wants to make a movie out of it, they got to come to us.’”
