10 More Movie Remakes Better Than The Original

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the on-screen life of James Bond began in 1962 when Sean Connery starred in Dr. No. However, this isn't the case. Just like Casino Royale was the first Bond novel penned by Ian Fleming, it was also the first to be adapted into live-action back in 1954.

Unrecognisable from how Casino Royale is thought of today, the TV movie that made up an episode of an anthology series called Climax! revolved around an American version of James "Jimmy" Bond. 007 battled Le Chiffre in a game of cards, but the episode was not received well.

Fast forward more than 50 years, with the Bond franchise solidified as one of the biggest in cinematic history, and Casino Royale acted as the debut of the long-awaited new 007, Daniel Craig. Arguably the sixth Bond actor's best effort, and certainly a breath of new life into the franchise after Pierce Brosnan's run, the remake of Casino Royale is far better than the original, and it's not even close.

Granted, it was against a relatively low bar, and even the least popular subsequent Bond film would have topped the 1954 effort. Still, director Martin Campbell and Daniel Craig, with the help of one of the greatest Bond villains of all time in Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre, made one of the franchise's best just to be safe.

All this without even mentioning the incredibly poorly received version of the story from 1967 that turned into a comedy spoof of the spy-thriller genre in general.