10 Movies That Completely Reinvent The Books They’re Based On

The 2006 version of Casino Royale is the straightest adaptation of Fleming out there. The first movie in the Daniel Craig era brought a stripped-down, leaner and meaner approach to the Bond franchise, and it was unusually faithful to the spirit and the plot of the 1953 novel at the very origin of Bond. Sure, they changed the setting and added in some parkour, but otherwise it is a no-nonsense affair with hardly any gadgets or ice castles or speedboat chases in sight.

Not so the first adaptation of Casino Royale. This 1967 oddity is a wild satire of the spy genre in which all secret agents are James Bond – even the girls. It features a showdown with Le Chiffre (played at maximum camp by Orson Welles), but in all other respects it is as loose an adaption of anything as you will ever see.

Bond has a daughter with Mata Hari who is kidnapped in a flying saucer. Woody Allen pops up as a neurotic spy paralysed by his excessive self-doubt. The film ends in heaven, after Jimmy Bond detonates a nuclear pill he has swallowed with a lethal series of hiccups. It should go without saying that none of this is in the book.

This movie is also the reason that Eon Productions couldn't use the title Casino Royale until 2006, despite exhausting almost every other possible title that was associated with 007. MGM acquired this version in 1999, but prior to this, they had been legally prevented from using the title or the story.

A disappointing and unintelligible flop at the time it was released, this version is largely forgotten these days as anything other than a pub quiz question answer. That's probably for the best.