Casino Royale (1967 film) Casino Royale (1967 film) Casino Royale is a 1967 spy comedy film originally produced by Columbia Pictures featuring an ensemble cast. It is loosely based on Ian Fleming's first James Bond novel. The film stars David Niven as the "original" Bond, Sir James Bond 007. Forced out of retirement to investigate the deaths and disappearances of international spies, he soon battles the mysterious Dr. Noah and SMERSH. The film's tagline: "Casino Royale is too much... for one James Bond!" refers to Bond's ruse to mislead SMERSH in which six other agents are pretending to be "James Bond", namely, baccarat master
James Bond in film Gavin to play the role of Bond, United Artists' chief David Picker was unhappy with this decision and instructed associate producer Stanley Sopel to broker a deal with Connery which saw the actor being paid $1.25 million ($ million in dollars) and 12.5% of the gross. Connery's salary took a significant part of the $7.2 million budget. The producers had originally intended to have "Diamonds Are Forever" re-create commercially successful aspects of "Goldfinger", so they hired director Guy Hamilton as a result. Richard Maibaum also returned to write the script; the first draft envisaged the return of Auric Goldfinger portrayer