James Bond, the British MI6 agent created by author Ian Fleming, is the star of pretty much the world’s most commercially successful movie franchise. Since 1962 the character has headlined 23 feature films, not including two rogue productions in 1967 and 1983; at the time of writinga 24th is in production. The James Bond formula has served the franchise remarkably well over the decades; however it has always faced a regular creative dilemma. There is a pressure with each succeeding sequel to top its predecessor. As a result the franchise has regularly had to undergo a sort of ‘reset’ process.

The most significant resetting of the James Bond formula came with Casino Royale, a 2006 production – and the 21stin the series – that not only reset the style of the franchise but rebooted it entirely, returning Bond to the early days of his career anddemonstrating how he became the suave yet cynical spy with whom audiences were familiar.

A complete text version of this essay is available at FictionMachine.