I felt the whole thing needed to have its feet well and truly on the ground.” “When I came on board, I felt the same way. “They wanted to bring it back to earth,” Campbell says. By the time Brosnan finished 2002’s Die Another Day, driving invisible cars through ice palaces, Bond producers knew the franchise had shifted into self-parody. Over the next three movies, the stories became excessively kitschy.

In 1995, Campbell introduced Pierce Brosnan as Bond with Goldeneye, which moved on from Timothy Dalton’s gritty take into a more fantastical realm. “It was the thing I sweated on more than anything else.” “There was a lot of playing in it,” he tells Polygon. But for Campbell, who had never picked up a deck, it looked like a snooze.

The card game, they believed, made for better drama - it was known more widely, required more skill and delivered higher stakes. Loosely adapting Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel of the same name, screenwriters Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and Paul Haggis had replaced the author’s original game of baccarat with three big rounds of Texas hold’em. This was his second reboot of the James Bond franchise, and on the cusp of production, he realized the movie’s centerpiece - a showdown between 007 and the blood-eyed villain Le Chiffre - took place around a quiet poker table. The chest also comes complete with the high quality poker chips and is finally adorned with a beautiful brass engraved plaque.The script for Casino Royale worried director Martin Campbell. The mechanical method for this effect is absolutely ingenious and it has been inspired by one of the most sought after Clarence Miller’s effects called Treasure Chest Divination.Ĭasino Royale measures approximately 10cms wide, 6.8cms high and 7cms deep and has been completely handcrafted from natural aged teak wood with a lightly distressed oil finish.

The effect can be immediately repeated with a different outcome! The effect is all done in full view – The chest never leaves the view of the spectator, not even for an instant! The effect is completely self-contained – No external gimmicks of any kind are used! The performer now turns around, holds the chest in full view and immediately announces the exact amount of casino chips that the spectator’s has in their hand! Let’s say, for example, that they remove $650.00 in total. While the performer’s back is turned, a spectator is invited to remove any number of the casino chips, place them behind their back and lock the chest. A beautiful wooden chest containing four “Casino Royale” chips ($50-$100-$500-$1000) are displayed.

Casino royale gambling chips