Of the 25 James Bond movies currently in existence, three of them are actually remakes. The James Bond movie franchise is currently in a state of flux. With longtime producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson stepping away and creative control being handed over to Amazon, the upcoming James Bond 26 could be a very different beast.
Still, with an incredible filmmaker like Denis Villeneuve behind the lens, it will no doubt be something special. There are already two examples of non-EON produced Bond movies: the 1967 parody Casino Royale and the 1983 adventure Never Say Never Again, which marked Sean Connery’s seventh and final outing.
Never Say Never Again is a fun curio, but the lack of 007 traditions (like the gun barrel opening or classic theme) make it feel off. Casino Royale, on the other hand, is something of a chore to sit through, being a comedy that’s never particularly funny. EON would eventually adapt the classic Ian Fleming novel themselves in 2006.
Casino Royale Is The Most Direct James Bond “Remake”
Rights issues kept Casino Royale out of EON’s hands for decades, but they finally acquired it in the early 2000s. Casino Royale was the clean slate the Bond saga badly needed after the garish, cartoony nightmare of Die Another Day. It introduced a more grounded, tortured 007 in the muscly form of Daniel Craig.
In the years since its release, Casino Royale has come to be seen as one of the best entries in the series. It’s got great action, an absorbing story, and it’s easily the most emotional. Craig was perfect casting, and it blasted away all lingering memories or thoughts of the overstuffed, undercooked 1967 original.
Licence To Kill Is A Stealth Remake Of Clint Eastwood’s A Fistful Of Dollars
Casino Royale might be the most obvious remake mentioned here, but one of the least is Licence to Kill. Co-writer Michael G. Wilson confirmed on the movie’s commentary that this Timothy Dalton Bond adventure is a riff on Yojimbo and Clint Eastwood Western A Fistful of Dollars.
The story sees Bond going rogue from MI6 and infiltrating a drug lord’s operation to destroy it from the inside. Much of Licence to Kill sees Bond play on the paranoia of the villain Sanchez (Robert Davi), turning him against his allies while pretending to be his friend.
Yojimbo also served as the basis for the 1996 Bruce Willis action movie Last Man Standing.
This is the setup of A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, which might be one reason Licence to Kill stands out so much from other Bond outings. It’s a darker, more psychological story, with the violence having a nastier bite. While it didn’t do great business in 1989, the film has aged very well.
No Time To Die Had Many Parallels To Dr. No
The final Bond movie to remix another movie is No Time to Die and it’s many, many nods to Dr. No. For a time, there was a rumor that Rami Malek was playing Dr. No, but his antagonist Safin still feels very inspired by that classic villain, from his fashion, his Asian-themed lair to his men calling him “Doctor.“
There are plenty of visual and thematic nods too, from Bond’s time in Jamaica and his first encounter with Nomi (Lastasha Lynch) mirroring Honey Ryder’s intro. Seeing as this was Craig’s final 007 movie, it would have been a nice piece of symmetry to have James Bond’s first and last onscreen foe under EON be Dr. No himself.
