Quentin Tarantino Confirms That He Almost Directed ‘Casino Royale’

Quentin Tarantino has given this fascinating interview with German outlet Zeit Magazine.

In it, he talks about his upbringing and his first few years in Hollywood. He also says that he thinks he’ll probably last longer than Hollywood will:

Yes, it's a shame. It's not the Hollywood I knew. Will the kind of cinema experience I grew up with still exist in five or six years? We will see. I certainly haven't left Hollywood - Hollywood has left me. I'll probably be the last one to turn off the light there […] I'll probably be around a few more years than Hollywood itself.

Tarantino then goes on to say that his previous excuse for retiring, that directors tend to stop peaking after 60, was just that, an excuse that he now admits was unfounded in any kind of truth.

Tarantino: “I've dedicated my life to movies. Nothing was more important, everything else was secondary. And at some point you have conquered all the peaks”.

He then confirms that he almost made “Casino Royale,” which was eventually made into a 2006 film with Daniel Craig’s Bond.

“Oh yes, I had read the book and thought it was pretty good. It basically tells James Bond's origin story. If I could have done it, it would have been my post-Pulp Fiction project. At that time, the producers of the Bond series did not have the rights to this book, and there was a decades-long legal battle over it. So it would have been conceivable that I would have filmed the book.

It does make sense that Tarantino would film “Casino Royale.” It’s the most unusual Bond film, maybe the best one as well, with these taut, tense and terrific set pieces that take place in single locations.

Martin Campbell eventually directed “Casino Royale,” ten years after Tarantino’s attempt to do so. However, one does wonder how different QT’s film would have been when compared to Campbell’s. Sadly, we’ll never know.