9 Origin Movies That Actually Worked

3. Casino Royale

It was always only a matter of time before someone decided to look back into what made James Bond James Bond, and we have Martin Campbell to thank for a revisionist take on the character that was somehow both transformative and nostalgic in equal parts.

Hanging heavily on the prickly charisma of the very purse-lipped Daniel Craig as the new blonde 007, Casino Royale was the Bond story a post-Bourne world needed. The pillars of the character were still there (albeit mildly diluted in some cases), but the origin story of his first mission actually sought to explain why he is how he is.

And it succeeds in spades, adding a tragic note to the character that had been absent mostly since On Her Majesty's Secret Service and reframing him not just as a weapon of the government, but a man driven just as much by personal trauma. For it to come so deep into a franchise - and after such bloated misfires - was a huge accomplishment