10 Times Changing The Tone Saved Movie Franchises

The Bond series operates in cycles. A serious film grounded in Ian Fleming's work gets more ridiculous with each sequel until it gets way too much that a whole re-imagining is warranted, changing Bond's portrayer in the process. Though of all of Bond's resets, the most pivotal has to be the debut of Daniel Craig's Bond in Casino Royale.

To introduce this Bond era, they decided took a leaf out of the book of one of its competitors, namely Jason Bourne. It kicks off with an action rollercoaster before going into the psychological one-upping of the poker game followed by a tragic love story. They all work together brilliantly to humanise Bond and provide a great villain, doing away with most of the cheesy tropes and turning the ones that stayed on their head, presenting them as organic by-products of the story.

Even the action was different, with breathtaking, relentless scenes and more personal stakes, it was more akin to Bourne than anything previously seen in Bond. Best of all, Casino Royale re-establishes Bond as a cold assassin who doesn't let his womaniser tendencies get in the way of the job, which is what audiences signed up for in the first place.