Motifs in the James Bond film series that is central to the spy film genre. The gun barrel imagery sometimes carried over to the film posters used to promote Bond films, including as a familiarising element on the introduction of Timothy Dalton for "The Living Daylights". The sequence was traditionally placed at the start of each film until the 2006 instalment "Casino Royale", where it appears after the cold open and is incorporated into the plot; in the 2008 film, "Quantum of Solace", the sequence was placed at the end of the film and incorporates the film's title in its design. For Skyfall, director Sam Mendes had
James Bond in film hours before the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike officially began. Further work on the script had to be undertaken by Forster and Daniel Craig, who said later, "We had the bare bones of a script and then there was a writers' strike and there was nothing we could do. We couldn't employ a writer to finish it. I say to myself, 'Never again', but who knows? There was me trying to rewrite scenes – and a writer I am not". Craig also admitted that the film was not initially meant to be a sequel, but it became one because