FILM · 2012 · UK
Skyfall
- Directed by
- Sam Mendes
- Runtime
- 143 min
- Studio
- Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, EON Productions, Columbia Pictures
320 archived facts 8 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
When Bond's latest assignment goes gravely wrong, agents around the world are exposed and MI6 headquarters is attacked. While M faces challenges to her authority and position from Gareth Mallory, the new Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, it's up to Bond, aided only by field agent Eve, to locate the mastermind behind the attack.
Summary: TMDB
All facts (320)
- #001
Contains a major spoiler — show
Skyfall is the first James Bond film in which the villain successfully achieves his main goal: M's death.
- #002
Among the fifty years of James Bond films, this is only the second in which Bond is wounded by a bullet; he was also shot during the Junkanoo chase in Thunderball (1965).
- #003
Daniel Craig performed the stunt himself in which he jumps from an escalator rail and slides down.
- #004
Viewing the Komodo dragon pit scene closely, you will notice that Daniel Craig has oddly shaped, chubby hands. This is because during filming Craig went to shops and bought a pair of gloves he thought suited 007. Director Sam Mendes allowed him to wear them in the scene, but later during editing they realized the gloves did not fit the scene's logic: James Bond's gun was taken by a henchman, it could not fire because the weapon was coded to Bond's palm print, and it allowed Bond to fire it. So there was no reason for Bond to wear gloves, since he could not fire his gun. After frantic calculations about how much reshooting the scene would cost, it was deemed too expensive and CGI was applied to Craig's hands.
- #005
The role of Kincade (Albert Finney) was originally written with Sir Sean Connery in mind. Producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson initially wanted Connery to come out of retirement for a surprise role. Director Sir Sam Mendes told The Huffington Post: "There was a definite discussion about that (Connery playing Kincade) very early on. But I think it's problematic. Because to me that's also… it takes you out of the movie. Connery is Bond and he's not going to come back as another character. It's like he was there. So it was a very brief flirtation with that thought, but it was never going to happen, because I thought it would distract."
- #006
It is the first James Bond film to gross 1 billion dollars worldwide.
- #007
James Bond's Tom Ford suit had eighty-five versions specially made for the opening chase scene. Thirty were made for Daniel Craig and thirty for the stuntman and double. Each version of the suit was made specifically for a particular moment in the opening sequence. For example, while Craig rides the motorcycle he wears a suit with longer sleeves so they would not ride up on his arms. Costume designer Jany Temime said: "Every suit had three pieces like a real traditional Savile Row suit. It was very high-class tailoring. The first suit was mohair, very light, wool silk. The tuxedo was wool silk. Everything was made of beautiful fabric. He jumps and fights, then stands up and the suit is perfect." Also, for the motorcycle portion of the chase, Craig's tie had to be weighted down. The weight prevented the tie from flying up while traveling at high speeds.
- #008
Dame Judi Dench took on the role of M in this film at the age of seventy-seven. This performance was also Dench's seventh time playing M. It is the largest role Dench has played as M on screen and the most significant James Bond film to date in exploring the relationship between M and James Bond. Producer Barbara Broccoli said this film explores that relationship perhaps more than the previous twenty-two films. She said: "We really wanted to explore the relationship between Bond and M because it's the most important relationship he has in his life. M is the only person who represents authority for him. You have two extraordinary actors and we thought, let's go all the way. It worked extremely well. It's a very emotional story."
- #009
Daniel Craig said he was concerned about the delays in the production and was willing to return to the role because, at forty-three, he felt he was getting too old to cope with the extreme physical demands of playing James Bond. Craig begins preparations for a Bond film about six months before shooting and works on the main shoot for about two hours every day after filming is completed.
- #010
Daniel Craig, who received a personal invitation from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, appeared as James Bond in the introduction video for the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, originally titled "The Arrival" but later known as "Happy and Glorious." In the fantasy entertainment segment, Daniel Craig and Queen Elizabeth II appear as James Bond meeting the Queen to escort her safely to the stadium. They are seen traveling to a helicopter flying along the River Thames toward the cauldron, where stunts are performed, and then the "skyfall" jump from the helicopters into the waiting ceremony accompanied by the familiar James Bond music. The segment is said to be the Queen's first acting role.
- #011
According to producer Michael G. Wilson, the passport used by Daniel Craig was an original document issued by the British Home Office, not by the props department. Everything from the paper, printing and photograph to the cover is completely original in James Bond's "official passport." However, as a security measure the passport was coded with information that would instantly flag any improper use in an official transaction. The actual details shown in Bond's passport in this film are as follows: Name = John Adam Bryce; Date of Birth = 16 December 1968; Sex = Male; Place of Birth = London; Date of Issue = 22 June 2012; and Date of Expiry = 22 August 2029.
- #012
Contains a major spoiler — show
This film implies that Bond's ancestors were Catholic. When Kincade (Albert Finney) shows M (Dame Judi Dench) the secret escape passage in the chapel at Bond's ancestral estate, he explains that it was actually a hiding place for priests, referring to the "Recusants" in English history, when priests were illegal (many were assassins sent by Philip of Spain to kill Queen Elizabeth) and those who continued to practice Catholicism, sheltered priests and rejected the authority of the official church (the Church of Scotland, that is Presbyterian in this case). One of the most prominent real-life Recusant families from Dorset was named "Bond." Their Latin family motto was "Non sufficit orbis," which translates as "Not even the world is enough," or more colloquially as "The World Is Not Enough (1999)," as Fleming used it in his novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service and as the title of a later Bond film. A member of this family, John Bond, was reportedly a spy for Sir Francis Drake during the Elizabethan era (despite his family being Catholic).
- #013
The porcelain bulldog on M's desk (which she later gives to Bond) is draped in a Union Jack. These bulldog figurines were created by Royal Doulton during World War II to represent patriotism. In Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), two Royal Doulton bulldogs sit on the desk of Control (Sir John Hurt), the head of MI6.
- #014
The opening sequence, filmed in the Turkish cities of Adana and Istanbul, required about two months of shooting, three months of rehearsal, four months of preparation, 200 crew members from the UK and another 200 local crew, and a running time of about twelve to fourteen minutes.
- #015
Dame Judi Dench has more screen time in this film alone than Desmond Llewelyn had in his seventeen films as Q, making her M character the most recurring character in the series after Bond (measured by screen time).
- #016
This was the final film of trumpeter Derek Watkins, who had worked in the music department as a trumpeter on every James Bond film since he was 17, having worked on twenty-three James Bond films starting with Dr. No (1962). Watkins died in 2013, four months after the premiere of this film.
- #017
Filming of one of Javier Bardem's first scenes (Silva's interrogation by M and Bond at the new MI6 headquarters) had to be stopped during one of the first takes when Bardem interrupted the scene, saying excitedly that he could not believe he was making a film with Dame Judi Dench and Daniel Craig.
- #018
Adele was pregnant when she recorded the theme song. In an interview with the BBC, she said that pregnancy hormones caused her voice to deepen, which is why her vocal tone on the song is so low. She also said she can no longer recreate that low tone.
- #019
A few days after the film opened in the UK, the real MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service (S.I.S.), ran a full-page advertisement in "The Times" and "The Sunday Times" under the headline "If the qualities that make a good spy were obvious, they wouldn't make a very good spy." The ad's aim was to debunk the legend and mythology surrounding fictional spies like James Bond in the film, stating that real-life espionage work is not "high-speed chases and shoot-outs" and that the average spy is not a "globe-trotting secret agent." Real agents, it showed, are actually "far more ordinary." The ad also rejected the white male spy stereotype, saying "the truth is, we don't care what sex you are, or where you're from, as long as you're a British national." The humorous campaign is considered one of MI6's most open recruitment campaigns. Even so, the ad still warns of extreme secrecy and strict confidentiality, advising potential applicants that they cannot tell anyone they have applied.
- #020
M's (Dame Judi Dench's) house in the film is the former home of legendary James Bond composer John Barry. The producers thought this would be a loving tribute to the late composer, who scored many James Bond films and defined the series' signature theme music, and whose work was a key inspiration for the modern Bond music composed by David Arnold. John Barry died in 2011. Thomas Newman's score for the film is said to serve as a tribute to Barry.
- #021
On the October 2012 episode of The Graham Norton Show (2007), Dame Judi Dench said her mobile phone had a James Bond-themed ringtone, that it mostly caused laughter on set when it rang during filming, and that after a while the annoying 007 ringtone became a running joke on set.
- #022
Daniel Craig told Rolling Stone Magazine that he wanted this to be his third and final Bond film, saying, "I've been trying to get out of this from the very moment I got into it, but they won't let me go." Craig went on to star in two more James Bond films, Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).
- #023
Contains a major spoiler — show
This is the first time a character says the "f" word in a James Bond movie. In The Living Daylights (1987), Bond (Timothy Dalton) was clearly seen saying "For God's sake!", but it could not be heard because of the noise of the aircraft engine. This film is the first Bond film to use an audible version of the "f" word, spoken by M (Dame Judi Dench) at Skyfall Lodge.
- #024
The quote spoken by M is from Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem "Ulysses": "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." The poem was first published in 1842, and the film's 2012 release fell on the poem's 170th anniversary.
- #025
The film deals with James Bond's Scottish ancestry. Bond's family background was created by Ian Fleming in the Bond novel "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Fleming was inspired to add Bond's genealogy to the book after seeing Sir Sean Connery (a Scot) play the character in Dr. No (1962). This is the second time in the official James Bond film series that the death of Bond's parents is addressed; the first was in GoldenEye (1995). The names of the Bond clan produced for the plaques and gravestones in the chapel and cemetery include: Andrew Bond, Robert Bond, Monique Delacroix Bond, Celia Bond, Kathleen Bond, Elsa/Elsie Louise Bond, Ramsay William Bond and Margaret Jean Davidson Bond.
- #026
Early in casting, Javier Bardem told director Sir Sam Mendes that he wanted to make certain specific changes to his own appearance, particularly to his hair and eye color. When Bardem arrived on set on the first day of shooting with Silva's makeup and effects, he was unrecognizable.
- #027
The komodo dragons in the floating casino scenes were entirely computer-generated. The difficulties of shooting with non-existent components were enough to convince director Sir Sam Mendes never to use CGI-created characters again.
- #028
For the motorcycle chase in Turkey, Coca-Cola was sprayed on the asphalt in Istanbul so the bikes would not slip. Although Coca-Cola was not an official product placement in the film, there was a Coca-Cola Zero marketing campaign tied to the film. Because the sugar in Coca-Cola makes it sticky, Coke Zero would have been less effective.
- #029
On The Graham Norton Show (2007), Naomie Harris said that because she would be using a real razor, she trained with a professional barber for six weeks for the razor-shaving scene and practiced on crew members.
- #030
The provocative scene in which James Bond meets Tiago Rodriguez, also known as Raoul Silva, appeared to be a kind of homosexual seduction and caused Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem to giggle between takes to ease the tension between the pair.
- #031
Contains a major spoiler — show
Reportedly, sales of cut-throat razors rose by around four hundred percent in the week following the film's release. Online retailers of cut-throat razors reported sales increases of fifty to four hundred percent due to the exposure the film generated. The surge in sales was attributed to the love scene in the film, in which Miss Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) gives James Bond (Daniel Craig) an erotic close shave with an old-fashioned straight razor and comments with a classic line: "Sometimes the old ways are the best."
- #032
Contains a major spoiler — show
The film was largely shot in sequence, so Dame Judi Dench's last scenes to be filmed were M's death.
- #033
Skyfall Lodge is not a real building but a purpose-built exterior set made of plywood and plaster. The custom-made artificial house in the film's story is a rural residence. The filming location is in Glencoe, Scotland, but the actual shooting location was Hankley Common in southwest Surrey, England.
- #034
Contains a major spoiler — show
In a 2014 interview with Radio Times magazine, Dame Judi Dench revealed that she cried when the producers told her that M would die at the end of the film. During the interview she also revealed that her late husband, Michael Williams, had encouraged her to sign on to the Bond films. "He wanted to live with a Bond woman," Dench said.
- #035
The Shanghai setting makes this the first Bond film shot in China. Originally, Licence to Kill (1989) was to be shot in China, but when the Chinese government made certain restrictive demands, such as veto rights over the script, the location's viability dropped. At one point this film's scene was said to include a motorcycle chase along the Great Wall of China, a chase originally designed for Licence to Kill (1989), but instead there was a rooftop motorcycle chase shot in Istanbul, Turkey. Another scene, a fight scene in the museum of recently discovered ancient terracotta figures in Xian, was also planned for Licence to Kill (1989), but that scene was not used in this film either. Screenwriter John Logan wanted to use Shanghai as a filming location because, "What we were looking for was a contrast to London. We wanted exotic places that didn't much resemble the world he grew up in, the world he operates in, places where in some ways Bond would be uncomfortable."
- #036
Contains a major spoiler — show
The opening title sequence foreshadows M's death. Dame Judi Dench's credit is displayed over a graveyard.
- #037
Contains a major spoiler — show
It is the first James Bond film in which the series' traditional Bond car, the Aston Martin DB5, is blown up.
- #038
According to director Sir Sam Mendes, the film was influenced by director Sir Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008). Some of the first reviews of the film compared its mood to that of The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Interestingly, a recurring line of dialogue in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) was "permission to die", which was also the title of a 1989 James Bond comic book. The image of Bond standing on a rooftop looking out over London with the British flag evoked Batman perched on rooftops looking out over Gotham City. Mendes said: "What Nolan has achieved, especially with the second film, The Dark Knight (2008), is an extraordinary thing. It was a game-changer for everybody. What Nolan proved was that you can make a huge film that is exciting and fun and has a lot to say about the world we live in, even if The Dark Knight (2008) isn't set in our world. It helped give me the confidence to take this film in directions that wouldn't have been possible without The Dark Knight (2008)." Nolan frequently said that the classic James Bond films influenced the Dark Knight trilogy. So it can be said that Bond inspired Batman, and Batman inspired Bond.
- #039
Many actors who played smaller roles in the film never received a script because the production's confidentiality protocols were strict enough to reflect real-life intelligence espionage. Tonia Sotiropoulou did not know what she would be doing in the film until her scenes were shot. She commented, "I was one of the people who never had a script. The director just told me what I was going to do on set. They have to be very careful. You have quite strict contracts that say you can't say anything about it, and everyone respects that."
- #040
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Bond follows Patrice to Shanghai, Patrice assassinates a man (credited as "Shanghai Art Collector") while looking at a painting. The painting is "Woman with a Fan (Luna Czechowska)", painted by Amedeo Modigliani in 1919. On 20 May 2010, this painting was stolen from the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris along with works by Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger. The paintings are still missing and their total value is estimated at two hundred million dollars.
- #041
At the 2013 Academy Awards ceremony, this film became the first James Bond film to set many records in the series' history: the highest number of Oscar nominations ever received by a Bond film (five: Best Song, Score, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and Cinematography). It was the first Bond film to receive an Oscar nomination in thirty years. The most recent had been For Your Eyes Only (1981), nominated for Best Song in 1982. In 1982, producer Albert R. Broccoli was also seen receiving the Honorary Thalberg Award. It was the first Bond film to win two Oscars (Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965) each won only one award). It was the third Bond film to win an Oscar and the first in forty-seven years, the last being Thunderball (1965). This film's Oscar for Sound Editing, which was a tie, was not actually the first in that category, because Goldfinger (1964) won for Best Effects and Sound Effects; and Diamonds Are Forever (1971) was nominated for Best Sound. Although many Bond songs had been nominated for the Best Song Oscar (Live and Let Die (1973), For Your Eyes Only (1981), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and the unofficial Casino Royale (1967)), Adele's "Skyfall" became the first James Bond theme to win the Best Original Song Oscar.
- #042
Javier Bardem described his character as follows: "An angel of death, a man who is rotten inside but very cleanly shaven. He has a very personal goal, he is not trying to destroy the world, and he moves toward that goal. A man seeking revenge. It is about focusing on the one person he wants to eliminate." Bardem also explained about finding the character inside the villain: "It is always about who the person behind the character is. It would be very difficult for me to play a role I had just seen. A kind of symbol. In this case, there is a man who is suffering, full of pain and frustration, who just wants to fix the situation. There was room to be funny or aggressive on this journey, but I could understand very well who he was, and that helped me portray him."
- #043
Ben Whishaw is the fourth actor to play Q in the official James Bond series. This is the first time Q is younger than James Bond. The producers said, "When it came time to reintroduce the character of Q, it made sense that he would now be a young tech genius, and the character was written with that in mind." Whishaw's Q has been compared to computer genius types such as Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg. Coincidentally, Whishaw said he does not even own a computer. Peter Burton first played Q under the character's real name, Major Boothroyd, and was referred to as "the Armorer" in Dr. No (1962); later Desmond Llewelyn played Q in seventeen Bond films between 1963 and 1999, followed by John Cleese (as Q's assistant "R") in The World Is Not Enough (1999), and then as Q in Die Another Day (2002), the latter being the character's last appearance. Before this film, that was the case in the official franchise. Counting the unofficial Bond films Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983), in which Q was played by Geoffrey Bayldon and Alec McCowen respectively, Whishaw became the sixth actor to play Q. Q is an abbreviation of the word "Quartermaster".
- #044
Adele's "Skyfall" became the first Billboard Top 10 hit to win the Best Original Song Oscar since Eminem's "Lose Yourself" from 8 Mile (2002).
- #045
The scene in which Bond takes M to his secret garage and his Aston Martin was shot in early December 2011, on a freezing night that coincided with Dame Judi Dench's 77th birthday. She was presented with a birthday cake in the parking lot at 4 a.m.
- #046
Eminönü Square, a busy business district of Istanbul, was used for the filming of the opening scene and had to be closed for three weeks for it. It is one of the oldest and most magnificent squares in Istanbul, surrounded by the ancient Egyptian Bazaar and the splendid New Mosque. As an interesting requirement in the bazaars, shops could open but could not trade because the area was closed to the public, traffic and pedestrians. To compensate the shopkeepers for their losses, they were paid 750 lira per day. The Turkish market scene in this film consisted of more than 250 dressed market stalls created by the Art and Accessories departments and was filled with about 500 extras.
- #047
During the main filming in Turkey, the production was criticized for allegedly damaging the roofs of buildings in Istanbul where the rooftop motorcycle chase was shot. One such incident that made local headlines was a stuntman jumping from a roof and breaking the window of the famous Bobeyi jewelry store. Producer Michael G. Wilson held a press conference and rejected the claims, saying that the roof covering was removed for the stunt riding and replaced with copies until filming was completed, after which the original covering was restored. This is not the first Bond film to feature a motorcycle chase on a rooftop; it is the second, after Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).
- #048
Contains a major spoiler — show
This film introduces one new female actor and two new actors who would play three recurring roles in the series. They are Naomie Harris as Miss Eve Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q and Ralph Fiennes as M. All three are the fourth people to play their characters in the official James Bond series.
- #049
The computer mainframe room where Silva gives his entrance speech was specially built to be exactly the right length for a single take in which Javier Bardem walks slowly and, at the end of the speech, comes to stand directly opposite Bond. The other key room in which Silva is seen is the plexiglass enclosure Javier Bardem called the "Crystal Cage".
- #050
According to a report in the UK newspaper The Sun, Bond girl Bérénice Marlohe said Daniel Craig was shy and hesitant before shooting the love scene in the shower. Marlohe said: "He was very shy and when he saw me getting into the shower he said 'Oh my God'. He tried not to take off his underwear for the shower scene, but I said 'No, come on, don't be shy. I'll do anything to make you comfortable.'".
- #051
Bond enters M's (Dame Judi Dench's) home for the second time in the official James Bond film series, as he did in Casino Royale (2006). At that time M said, "Don't ever break into my house again", but this film does not mention it.
- #052
This film has many things in common with The World Is Not Enough (1999). Both feature kidnapping victims abandoned to their fate by M, whom they see as a mother figure, and M has to deal with the consequences of her decisions when the victims in question seek revenge. They are also the only James Bond films in which M is actually part of the story rather than briefing Bond and sending him on his way. Both include scenes in Istanbul, Turkey, as well as a chase scene in London (a rarity for the series, although London appears in almost every film), an explosion at MI6, MI6's temporary relocation, the healing of the shoulder injury Bond received in the teaser, the introduction of a new Q who is a female assistant afraid of her male terrorist employer, Bond being held captive in a chair by the Big Bad, the Big Bad using Bond to reach M, Bond following a villain underground, a helicopter's destruction, Bond's car, Bond using gas to blow up a helicopter, and the villain being impaled by a metal object.
- #053
During the martini scene at the bar, the famous James Bond drinking catchphrase "shaken, not stirred" is not spoken, but the martini is clearly prepared on screen and the bartender is shown shaking it before pouring. Also, the label of the bottle of alcohol that Tiago Rodriguez, also known as Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), offers Bond (Daniel Craig) on his island reads "1962", a reference to the series' 50th anniversary. The beer is Heineken, which contributed a fairly large amount to product placement. Bill Tanner (Rory Kinnear) is also seen drinking it.
- #054
Glencoe, Scotland, is a filming location that plays itself: Glencoe. In the James Bond novel "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," Ian Fleming wrote that Bond's father, Andrew, was from Glencoe, giving Bond a sense of his family background. The Glencoe area has one of Scotland's most iconic landscapes; its mountains contain some of the oldest sedimentary and volcanic layers in the world. In this film, those mountains served as a beautiful backdrop for the drive Bond and M take along Glencoe's scenic roads in the iconic silver birch Aston Martin DB5.
- #055
This film is not a sequel to the previous two. Producer Barbara Broccoli said the series would move on to other different stories from now on. However, the possibility remains that the QUANTUM organization could reappear in later films. Broccoli said: "I think in some way he's going to go after the organization. So in that sense it could become a trilogy, but we didn't structure it exactly that way."
- #056
Kevin Spacey was reportedly considered for a role but turned it down due to a scheduling conflict. Director Sir Sam Mendes is believed to have initially offered Spacey the role of the villain Tiago Rodriguez, also known as Raoul Silva. Spacey had worked with Mendes on American Beauty (1999), in which Spacey's character complained to his wife about missing a James Bond marathon on television.
- #057
The promotional tie-in with Heineken beer for this film was valued at £28 million ($45 million). The product placement caused a media controversy before release, drawing criticism for lacking integrity, blatantly commercializing the film with Daniel Craig appearing in a Heineken commercial, and showing disrespect for James Bond's traditional drink, the shaken, not stirred martini. Producers Michael G. Wilson and Daniel Craig defended the financing, noting that making Bond films costs a great deal of money and that this film could not have been completed without such support, along with the fact that most of the product placements involved supplying products alongside technical support, and that James Bond is still seen drinking a vodka martini.
- #058
Contains a major spoiler — show
For the destruction of the Aston Martin DB5, the production team did not use the real car. Instead, the model workshop turned to a German company that produced the car's parts using old 3D printing technology. The model was 1:3 scale and was later destroyed in front of the cameras.
- #059
Albert Finney's final film role before his retirement came out the same year. He died on 7 February 2019 at the age of eighty-two.
- #060
During principal photography, three Turkish youths got past tight security in Adana, Turkey, and infiltrated a closed film set, where they filmed footage of a train scene with their mobile phones. In keeping with the intrigue of the earlier Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), also shot in Turkey, the three sneaked through back alleys and jumped a wire fence at the train station where this film was being shot. The trio went under the train cars and met up in the repair shop, where they disguised themselves as spies and put on authorized workers' helmets and overalls. They were later caught by security, interrogated and removed from the set.
- #061
Contains a major spoiler — show
The first two people to play the character M, Dame Judi Dench and M's successor Ralph Fiennes, share the screen in the same scenes.
- #062
The train fight scene was supposed to be shot in India, with many people traveling on the roof of the train. However, the Indian government refused permission, saying it would give a bad impression of India and its culture.
- #063
According to Dame Judi Dench, the secrecy surrounding plot details took the form of individually watermarking early copies of the script, so that each official recipient could be specifically traced if plot details were carelessly leaked.
- #064
The Aston Martin DB5's license plate is BMT 216A, the same as in Goldfinger (1964) and Thunderball (1965). Also in this film, the garage the Aston Martin DB5 comes out of resembles the villain's facility in Goldfinger.
- #065
Marketing is said to have reached a new level with Daniel Craig appearing in various commercial television advertisements for the product placements seen in this film, such as Heineken, Omega watches and Sony Electronics. But this was justified, Daniel Craig said: "The fact is actually that without them we couldn't do it. It's an unfortunate situation but it's the way it is. It costs a lot of money to make this film, it costs almost as much, if not more, to promote it, so we go where we can go."
- #066
Original James Bond producer Harry Saltzman's highly secret intelligence career was first revealed by Canadian David Giammarco in his acclaimed 2002 book "For Your Eyes Only: Behind the Scenes of the James Bond Films," published for the 40th anniversary of the James Bond films. For this 50th anniversary 007 film, with contributions from David Giammarco, Hilary Saltzman and Steven Saltzman, longtime collaborators on the Bond franchise, he disclosed the full extent of their father's intelligence work, including previously secret documents, photographs and analysis, in a special article for Vanity Fair Magazine titled "50 Years of 007: The Secret Spy Life of James Bond Producer Harry Saltzman." As part of the worldwide promotion of the golden anniversary of cinema's longest-running series, launched by Albert R. Broccoli and Saltzman in 1962, this extraordinary package of revelations, kept under extremely tight wraps by Giammarco and Vanity Fair for nearly a year, instantly sparked exciting media headlines around the world during the countdown to this film's eagerly awaited theatrical release.
- #067
Contains a major spoiler — show
In three consecutive James Bond films, Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008) and this film, every girl Bond sleeps with or teases ends up dying. These include: Solange, Vesper Lynd, Agent Strawberry Fields and Sévérine. He does not sleep with Camille Montes or Miss Eve Moneypenny (though a liaison with the latter was strongly suggested, if so off-screen), and both survive.
- #068
In the famous gun barrel sequence, Bond is seen for the first time wearing a grey suit instead of a black one.
- #069
During the final attack on Skyfall Lodge, the downwash from the helicopter (an Agusta Westland Merlin AW101) was so strong that it burst the false teeth in Javier Bardem's mouth.
- #070
When Bond (Daniel Craig) and Q (Ben Whishaw) meet at the National Gallery in London, Q jokes about giving Bond an exploding pen while Bond complains about the gadgets he is given to carry out the mission. In the previous two films, Q had given Bond such a pen: Never Say Never Again (1983) and GoldenEye (1995).
- #071
The title is not a phrase taken from any Ian Fleming James Bond story. Screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade came up with the title "Skyfall" at two in the morning. Neal and Robert said: "We needed a memorable place name. I just pulled it out of the air and it turned out to be something that interested the filmmakers." This is the only Bond film for which the team provided the title. The title of The World Is Not Enough (1999) was taken from a real-life Bond family motto mentioned by Ian Fleming in the novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), while the title of Die Another Day (2002) was taken from a line in A. E. Housman's poem "A Shropshire Lad." Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008) were titles taken from original Ian Fleming stories.
- #072
Although the Aston Martin in this film has many of the original's features, it is not the same. Specifically, the original had a noticeable panel on its roof for the ejector seat. The one in this film has a smooth roof with no panel.
- #073
Contains a major spoiler — show
According to Ian Fleming, a 00 Agent faces forced retirement from field work at the age of 45, at which point 00 status is revoked and the agent is assigned to posts at MI6 Headquarters. In this film, James Bond fails his qualifying tests due to his physical condition and is to be retired and given a desk job. When this film came out, Daniel Craig was 44 years old.
- #074
This is the second time Bond is seen with a beard in the official James Bond series; the first was Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day (2002). In both films the character has a beard for only part of the film. In both cases we see the beard being shaved.
- #075
Contains a major spoiler — show
This is the first James Bond film in which M (or any senior MI6 official) dies on screen.
- #076
The Paddock Tank (Outer Tank) at Pinewood Studios doubled as the exterior of the Shanghai Golden Dragon Casino. The set was lit with three hundred floating lanterns and two dragon heads ten metres tall. Twelve craftsmen were brought from China to create the authentic structures. They were made from wrapped steel cables and silk fabric and were lit from inside by four hundred bulbs.
- #077
In the Macau casino scene, Fukutu (Tom So), one of the high-stakes gamblers from Casino Royale (2006), can be clearly seen playing billiards in the background.
- #078
Contains a major spoiler — show
Behind Bond's crying when M dies from her wound lies a message: "No matter how many people wanted him dead, or how many people told her he'd gone rogue. She always believed in him."
- #079
The painting that Q (Ben Whishaw) and James Bond (Daniel Craig) view at the National Gallery is "The Fighting Temeraire" (1839) by J. M. W. Turner. It depicts the most famous of his paintings, the H.M.S. Temeraire, one of the last 90-98 gun "second class" warships that played a distinguished role in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. It was decommissioned in 1838 and towed from Sheerness to Rotherhithe to be scrapped. Turner's main purpose in painting it was to evoke a sense of loss at the death of a ship that had once seen great glory. This evokes the theme of the aging warriors M (Dame Judi Dench) and Bond, referenced again in M's quotation from Tennyson. The painting featured in the private sale is Woman with a Fan (1919) by Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. The reason it is a private sale is that it was stolen from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris in May 2010. The same painting appears hanging in Madeleine's room at Blofeld's facility in Morocco in Spectre (2015).
- #080
The exotic Çalış Beach, a remote beach in Turkey's Fethiye, was a major challenge for the location department for the filming of a scene featuring James Bond. EON Productions had to negotiate with the beach's 613 partial owners to allow filming there.
- #081
The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul featured prominently in the opening chase scene. The Grand Bazaar is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world, with sixty-one covered streets and over three thousand shops attracting up to four hundred thousand visitors a day. Because of the dangerous nature of the sequence, access to the location where this film unit was based was only possible on Sunday, when the bazaar was closed. Through the joint efforts of the location department, production design, art department and set dressing department, the bazaar was dressed on the preceding Saturday nights to look like a hive of activity such as you would expect from the location. 500 Turkish extras were brought in to give the Grand Bazaar its usual crowded and bustling atmosphere. The roofs of the bazaar served as a magnificent platform for watching Istanbul's ancient and dynamic skyline. The production made great efforts to protect and preserve the Grand Bazaar's historic architecture; there were also floating reinforced steel roof panels over the existing tiles to protect the original structure. The Grand Bazaar shop that the motorcycle crashed into the window of was around 330 years old.
- #082
In early drafts of the screenplay, when M (Dame Judi Dench) enters her home to find James Bond (Daniel Craig) waiting for her, after the line "007 reporting for duty" and Bond's reply "I came back" to "You're supposed to be dead," M said, "You only live twice, Mr. Bond." This would have been a reference to You Only Live Twice (1967), which starred Sir Sean Connery.
- #083
While speaking through microphones at "The Golden Dragon Casino," James Bond (Daniel Craig) warns Miss Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) to stop touching her ear. This is a reference to Casino Royale (2006), in which Bond warned Agent Carter (Joseph Millson) to stop touching his ear while speaking to him.
- #084
The main villain, Raoul Silva, does not appear until roughly seventy minutes into the film.
- #085
This is the first James Bond film shot entirely digitally; previously, only part of one scene in Quantum of Solace (2008) had been shot digitally. It is also the first film to use the Arri Alexa Studio camera, which cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins chose because, unlike other Alexa models, it has an optical viewfinder. Because the camera had not yet gone into production, Deakins shot with Arri's only Studio prototype.
- #086
Daniel Craig was injured during the rehearsal period of this film, after which the schedule was rearranged to allow two weeks of rest for his injuries. Craig was not injured during principal photography. This is the second time in the series' history that a delay occurred because the actor playing James Bond was injured. The first was Die Another Day (2002), when Pierce Brosnan tore his knee during filming of the opening scene involving the flying vehicle and production was halted for about one to two weeks.
- #087
The helicopter of Tiago Rodriguez, also known as Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem), was an AgustaWestland AW101. Although it was one of the newest and most advanced helicopters at the time this film was made, sound effects editor William R. Dean applied the common dubbing practice of using the sound of the twin-bladed Bell Huey, a Vietnam-era helicopter developed in the late 1950s.
- #088
Director Sir Sam Mendes had a relationship with Rachel Weisz, who was once said to be appearing in this film. Weisz is now married to Daniel Craig. Weisz has also appeared in spy films such as The Bourne Legacy (2012) and The Constant Gardener (2005), for which she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, a film that coincidentally also starred Ralph Fiennes.
- #089
Q and Bond initially look at J. M. W. Turner's painting "The Fighting Temeraire." Turner depicts the old ship of the line HMS Temeraire being towed away for scrapping. This mirrors Bond himself as an aging warrior being retired. However, at the end of the film, while Bond speaks with the new M, there is another painting in the background, this time depicting the Battle of Trafalgar, HMS Temeraire's finest hour, symbolizing 007's return.
- #090
The glass set representing the interior of the Shanghai office skyscraper was called "The Jellyfish." It was built at Pinewood Studios and likened to "a hall of mirrors." Cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins said: "Because it was all glass, the crew walking through it kept bashing into things." For filming, Deakins lit the set with two huge LED panels used to represent the electronic billboards outside the skyscraper's office windows. Production had initially scouted a location for a Chinese skyscraper, but this fell through; the replacement set was improved by being built from glass in multiple dimensions. The scene featuring "The Jellyfish" in this film is the one in which Bond pursues an assassin to an office complex in Shanghai. A hall of mirrors was seen in the opening scene and finale of The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
- #091
Bond's father's hunting rifle is a .500 caliber Nitro Express, an extremely powerful film gun. During the final shot, Bond is seen firing from the hip. The recoil makes this a very foolish thing to do, and a person hit by one of the bullets would not simply fall to the ground. A shot to the center mass would blow out the entire chest cavity and would likely throw the target's arms off at the shoulders.
- #092
The gun barrel sequence was reshot specifically for this film, as it had been for the previous film. In this third Daniel Craig Bond film, Craig still did not appear in the traditional series gun barrel sequence shown at the beginning of the film (the last film to originally use this sequence was Die Another Day (2002)). According to Sir Sam Mendes, an attempt was made to place the gun barrel before the pre-title sequence, but it did not work artistically. It was also placed at the end of the film to mark the series' Golden Anniversary with Bond's 50th Anniversary logo. Daniel Craig is also the first actor to film three different gun barrel scenes, showing Bond wearing different outfits and in different poses while firing. In the famous gun barrel scene, Bond is seen for the first time wearing a gray suit instead of black. Sir Roger Moore is the other Bond actor to shoot more than one gun barrel sequence; he shot one for Live and Let Die (1973), which was reused in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), and eventually shot a second one for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), which would be reused in his other Bond films.
- #093
It grossed $100 million in overseas ticket revenue in its first week.
- #094
The London Underground train crash that occurs while Bond is chasing Silva was filmed on the huge 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios, which had hosted many of the past super-scale Bond sets. For the crash, filmed on "The Catacombs Set," the crew built two full-size fabricated replica Tube train cars, each weighing about five to seven tons, while the real ones weigh around twenty-five to thirty tons. The Tube cars were raised onto a track about six meters above the floor of the set. Near the ceiling of the set, broken Tube rails curved downward, along with a monorail supporting the cars from above. The trains were then accelerated along the elevated rail guided by the monorail, derailed, and crashed into the ceiling of the catacombs, which was made of separable elements. When the train hit, a large part of the 007 Stage was destroyed. Digital visual effects were later added in post-production to support the practical special effects. It was too dangerous to allow people to remain on the stage during the filming of the crash, so eleven remote-controlled cameras were placed around the 007 Stage to capture the crash from various angles.
- #095
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Ralph Fiennes confirmed that his character was a government agent, it led to widespread speculation that his character would be the new "M" in the franchise and that Dench's "M" would be depicted as retiring. None of this was confirmed, but Fiennes confirming the nature of his role put an end to speculation that he would play Bond's old enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Ultimately the speculation proved correct, as Fiennes's character, Gareth Mallory, a former Lieutenant Colonel in the British Army and Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, becomes M at the end of this film. Fiennes's role as M is the first time a man has held the role since Robert Brown's turn in Licence to Kill (1989).
- #096
Raoul Silva was modeled on the Joker from The Dark Knight (2008) and Colonel Hans Landa from Inglourious Basterds (2009).
- #097
The deer depicted at the entrance to the Skyfall estate were inspired by a pair at Duntrune Castle in Argyll.
- #098
The mug Q drinks from in his laboratory bears the letter "Q" from the game Scrabble, complete with the number "10," its point value in the game.
- #099
Due to MGM's bankruptcy and the delayed sale, development and production were postponed for nearly nine months between 2010 and 2011, and production was officially suspended on April 19, 2010. In a press statement made at the time by producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson about this film, then known as "Bond 23," they said: "Due to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the future of MGM and the failure to close a sale of the studio, we have suspended development on 'Bond 23' indefinitely. We do not know when development will resume and do not have a date for the release of 'Bond 23'." During this period, despite the canceled financing, some development and pre-production work continued on this James Bond film with the goal of releasing it in cinemas on the series' 50th anniversary. Production resumed in January 2011.
- #100
The names of the MI6 agents leaked in the YouTube video are those of production crew members, though the faces shown belong to actors. Among the names used are art director Paul Inglis, associate producer Andy Surry and special effects technician Steve Benelisha. The other two MI6 agent names, Mansur Dimka and Ben Daheer, appear not to be based on any particular person. The YouTube poster who uploaded the video in the film has the handle "vials", an anagram of "Silva", the surname of the villain Raoul Silva. The running time of the YouTube video is also 0:07, a reference to James Bond's 007 code number.
- #101
The film's Royal World Premiere marked a rare gathering, on the series' 50th anniversary, of the families of James Bond producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli and of author Ian Fleming. Since Saltzman was able to acquire the film rights to the 007 novels from Fleming in 1962, and given both men's shared experience as intelligence agents, the unique seating arrangement at the Royal Albert Hall reflected that relationship. In the Royal Box beside His Majesty King Charles III (then the Prince of Wales) and the then Duchess of Cornwall (Queen Camilla) sat Ian Fleming's surviving family, including his niece Lucy Fleming and his cousin Sir Christopher Lee, who served in British Intelligence, alongside Saltzman's daughter Hilary Saltzman, his son Steven Saltzman, and the Canadian press and broadcast journalist David Giammarco, a longtime associate of the James Bond films and author of the book "For Your Eyes Only: Behind the Scenes of the James Bond Films". The film's Gala Charity Premiere benefited retired members of Britain's intelligence agencies, of which His Majesty is the Royal Patron.
- #102
Tonia Sotiropoulou, who appears early in the film as a minor Bond Girl, auditioned for the other Bond Girl role, Sévérine, but lost out to Bérénice Marlohe. After casting director Debbie McWilliams suggested the production might find another role for her, her management company Back Door Management resubmitted her for this film and she was successful. Tonia's Bond Girl character has no name and is credited only as "Bond's Lover". Her brief role is also entirely silent, making her the first Bond Girl to visibly consummate a relationship with Bond (rather than merely implying it) without speaking a single word.
- #103
When it came to casting Silva's mercenaries, director Sir Sam Mendes wanted actors rather than stuntmen. Stunt coordinator Gary Powell set up a stunt training camp to find actors who met the physical requirements. The group, which began with forty-two men, had to learn how to throw a punch, how to react to punches, how to hold a gun and how to react to being shot. The group was eventually narrowed down to the seven men who looked the most natural.
- #104
M, who writes James Bond's obituary after he is presumed dead, is from the novel "You Only Live Twice".
- #105
Stuntman and James Bond stunt double Andy Lister performed the fall from the bridge into the river in the opening scene. Riggers set up a crane on top of the train carriage to hold the safety line. Andy then reacted to the fired gun by falling backwards loosely from a height of three hundred feet (ninety-two metres). This stunt jump is a typical Bondian "Skyfall" jump synonymous with the series. Skyfall jumps have appeared regularly since The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); among others, Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), The Living Daylights (1987), Licence to Kill (1989), GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999), Die Another Day (2002) and Quantum of Solace (2008).
- #106
The four-year gap between the release of Quantum of Solace (2008) and this film is the third-longest period between James Bond films. This gap between films also represents the longest stretch between films without a change of actor playing James Bond. The previous intervals between Licence to Kill (1989) and GoldenEye (1995) (the longest period between films in the series) and later between Die Another Day (2002) and Casino Royale (2006) were accompanied by cast changes in the actor playing James Bond. The gap between Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2020), at five years, now ranks second.
- #107
At two hours and twenty-three minutes, this film was once the second-longest Bond film of all time, with the longest at the time being Casino Royale (2006) at two hours and twenty-four minutes. At that time, the third-longest total running time for a Bond film was On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) at two hours and twenty-two minutes, which had previously held the record as the longest film for 37 years. No Time to Die (2020), with a total of 163 minutes, or two hours and 43 minutes, now has the longest total running time ever for a Bond film. Casino Royale (2006), at two hours and twenty-four minutes, was once the longest James Bond film, beating the previous record-holder On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) by four minutes and staying four minutes further ahead until the release of Spectre (2015). Spectre (2015), with a total running time of two hours and twenty-eight minutes, was the film that previously held the record for the longest James Bond film. Daniel Craig has now played Bond in the four longest films of all time: No Time to Die (2020), Spectre (2015), Skyfall (2012) and Casino Royale (2006). The long-standing record-holder On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) now ranks fifth, while Skyfall (2012) ranks fourth. By contrast, Daniel Craig also starred in Quantum of Solace (2008), the shortest theatrical film to date, with a total running time of only one hour and forty-six minutes.
- #108
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although Mr. White and the QUANTUM organisation did not appear in this film, Mr. White returned in Spectre (2015), and in the following film it was revealed that Raoul Silva and Mr. White were members of S.P.E.C.T.R.E., the organisation.
- #109
The first Bond film Sir Sam Mendes saw was Live and Let Die (1973), and his favourite is From Russia with Love (1963). During pre-production, Mendes was hired as a consultant during MGM's bankruptcy period, which prevented him from being paid a direct fee because he was classified as a director in good faith on the production and therefore required an official director's payment. Mendes was reportedly offered the directing job by Daniel Craig at a party. A meeting with the producers was then arranged for Mendes, and things proceeded from there. As a child, Mendes owned a die-cast Corgi Toys model of Bond's Aston Martin DB5, which inspired him to include the vehicle in this film. Around the time of Casino Royale (2006), Mendes initially thought Craig had been miscast as Bond. Mendes told "Metro": "I was one of those who said I didn't think he was the right casting. I was asked in an interview at the time and I said, 'I'm not sure, I'd advise him not to do it.'" With its PG-13 rating, this is also Mendes's first film that is not R-rated.
- #110
The opening few seconds are a tribute to the traditional gun barrel openings of previous James Bond films. The long, dark corridor with a bright light at its end resembles the shape of the gun barrel. Bond enters the frame from off-screen with a gun in his hand and is silhouetted at the end of the corridor. Then only the first three notes of the Bond theme are played.
- #111
At the end of the film, Miss Moneypenny's and M's office is a recreation of the original office from Dr. No (1962). However, the ship painting that hung above the fireplace behind the desk was now between the windows, and in its place hung a picture of the new MI6 building.
- #112
Naomie Harris's mother comes from Jamaica, where Ian Fleming wrote the James Bond stories at his Goldeneye estate. At thirty-five, Harris was one of the oldest actresses to play a significant Bond Girl at the start of filming. Honor Blackman was thirty-seven when she filmed Goldfinger (1964), and Maud Adams was also thirty-seven when she filmed Octopussy (1983). Harris attended this film's Royal World Premiere with twenty-six members of her family.
- #113
Javier Bardem became the second Oscar winner in the cast to play a major Bond villain. The first was Christopher Walken in A View to a Kill (1985), who won an Oscar for The Deer Hunter (1978). Both Oscars were in the Best Supporting Actor category; Bardem's statuette was for No Country for Old Men (2007). Bardem is not the only actor in this film with a Best Supporting Acting Oscar; Dame Judi Dench also has one, for Shakespeare in Love (1998).
- #114
With the cooperation and support of the Mayor of London's Office and Transport for London, the production managed to close Vauxhall Bridge and Millbank for a scene in which M witnesses a terrorist attack on MI6 Headquarters. The explosion at MI6 Headquarters was represented that day by a few fireworks, but later a one-third-scale miniature model of MI6 was built on the backlot at Pinewood Studios, where longtime James Bond special effects expert Chris Corbould, this film's special effects and miniature effects supervisor, used twenty-eight explosives to recreate the attack.
- #115
This is the first time the "f" word is audibly said in a Bond movie, when M exclaims in the third act that she has really messed this up.
- #116
Second unit director Alexander Witt and the second unit went to Shanghai, China, to shoot the main footage and driving scenes. The team worked nights during the busy week before Chinese New Year to capture the exciting, constantly changing metropolis, one of the world's most dynamic cities. An aerial unit piloted by Marc Wolff was granted rare access to the skies above the city to shoot with a helicopter borrowed from the Chinese government. Production designer Dennis Gassner and the art department worked on the sound stages at Pinewood Studios to create the rest of the Chinese setting.
- #117
Contains a major spoiler — show
In October 2012, discussion arose in the media and online about the homoerotic undertones of Raoul Silva's behaviour toward James Bond, who was traditionally a devoutly heterosexual ladies' man. The excitement suggested that Silva might be the first male Bond "Girl" and that James Bond might actually be bisexual. However, this was not the first time a Bond villain had been suggested to be gay, since the characters Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) were camp henchmen. This is the second time in three Daniel Craig films that James Bond is tied to a chair and tortured by the main villain. In Casino Royale (2006), Bond's testicles were struck with a knotted rope by Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen). Here Bond's chest is stroked by Raoul Silva, who then gropes and strokes both of his legs with both hands. There is an off-screen implication between shots that Bond's testicles are being stroked, making the scene controversial in a manner similar to the Casino Royale (2006) scene.
- #118
Stuntman Gary Powell and other members of his family have worked on every official James Bond film in the EON Productions series since Dr. No (1962). His father and uncle, Nosher Powell and Dinny Powell, worked with Sir Sean Connery and George Lazenby on the Bonds of the early 1960s and throughout the 1970s; his brother Greg Powell worked with Sir Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton on the Bonds of the 1970s and 1980s, and Gary worked on all the Bonds of the 1990s and 2000s with Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, as well as this film, the first Bond film of the 2010s.
- #119
This is the only James Bond film in which the lead does not include a Bond Girl. Dame Judi Dench holds a major female role as M, joining the climax and carrying the emotional center of the story, but she is not a Bond Girl because she and Bond have no romantic relationship. The film's secondary Bond Girls are Naomie Harris as Miss Eve Moneypenny, Bérénice Marlohe as Sévérine, and Tonia Sotiropoulou as Bond's Lover. Freida Pinto, Olivia Wilde, Rachel Weisz, Esti Ginzburg, Margarita Levieva, Alice Eve, Ana Ventura, Emilia Fox and Ebru Akel were said or thought to appear in the film as Bond Girls. This is reportedly the first film in the official series in which the production notes and promotional materials generally refer to the lead actresses not as "Bond Girls" but as "Bond Women."
- #120
At the Spanish premiere held on 29 October 2012 at the Teatro Español in Madrid, many of the film's big red-carpet stars, including Javier Bardem, carried posters during the gala to protest the layoffs of theater workers.
- #121
The lizards seen in the pit at the Golden Dragon floating casino are Komodo Dragons, or Komodo Monitors, whose species is "Varanus komodoensis," part of the monitor lizard family Varanidae. They are the largest reptile dragon species found in the Indonesian islands and also the largest living lizard species in the world, growing up to ten feet (three meters) long and weighing around one hundred fifty pounds (sixty-eight kilograms). Track 13 of Thomas Newman's "Skyfall" score is titled "Komodo Dragon." The casino where the dragons appear, "The Golden Dragon Casino," is inspired by the lizards housed within it.
- #122
Contains a major spoiler — show
M is shot by an unnamed manservant at around one hour and fifty-seven minutes and dies of her wound about seventeen minutes later, at roughly two hours and fourteen minutes. Raoul Silva is both successful and unsuccessful in his revenge: he never manages to harm her personally, and he is killed by James Bond before he can see her die.
- #123
Javier Bardem was once offered a role in an earlier James Bond film, possibly even the role of Bond (though that is unlikely). Bardem told CinemaBlend: "Years ago I was offered Bond, I don't remember for which film. But yes, it wasn't then. I felt it wasn't the time for me to do something like that, and I was also doing something else, so I passed. This time, when I read it, I felt it was very strong material and I wanted to be part of it."
- #124
Contains a major spoiler — show
Tiago Rodriguez, also known as Raoul Silva, reads James Bond's psychological profile, which mentions Bond's unresolved childhood trauma. This refers to his losing his parents in a climbing accident when he was eight years old. This was explored in more detail in the next Bond film, Spectre (2015).
- #125
Much of the film's story takes place beneath the surface of London's streets, in an underground setting historically known as "The Churchill Bunker System." During World War II, many government offices moved underground to protect themselves from German bombing during "The Blitz." Here, after MI6 headquarters comes under a terrorist attack, M decides to move underground, just as Sir Winston Churchill did during World War II.
- #126
Contains a major spoiler — show
Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) says he worked for MI6 in Hong Kong from 1986 to 1997, long before James Bond (Daniel Craig), who reached "00" status in 2006, was active. Bardem, born in 1969, is one year younger than Craig. Assuming he is the same age as the actor playing him, this means Silva (then Tiago Rodriguez) was recruited at seventeen, a year before the legal age of adulthood in Britain. Eleven years later, at twenty-eight, it emerged that he had hacked the Chinese without authorization and he was handed over to the Chinese government by his department head, Olivia Mansfield (now "M"). It took him another fifteen years to take his revenge.
- #127
Contains a major spoiler — show
Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) is a former MI6 agent. This is not the first time the main villain in a James Bond film is a rogue ex-agent. The main villain of GoldenEye (1995) was Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean), a former agent with the code number 006. Die Another Day (2002), Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008) featured MI6 turncoats as the villains' henchmen.
- #128
Contains a major spoiler — show
The character Severine is the subject of many comparisons with Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun. Both are found on Chinese soil, both are enslaved by a villain and seduce Bond in the hope that he will kill the man and free them, both gamble and carry Beretta pistols, both have shower scenes with Bond, both are involved in conspiracies involving custom-made bullets, and both are shot in the chest and killed by the villain using a special pistol.
- #129
Adele's theme song was the first Bond song to share the film's title since Madonna's Die Another Day (2002), and the first to do so for a Daniel Craig James Bond film. The premiere of "Skyfall" took place on Friday, 5 October 2012 at 0:07 BST (4 October, 19:07 EDT), exactly 50 years after the release of Dr. No (1962). A ninety-second version of the song leaked online shortly after Adele officially announced on Twitter that she was the artist singing the title song. The song was recorded with a full orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London.
- #130
Shortly before post-production was locked, roughly ten minutes of footage was cut from the film because the total running time was quite long. These scenes and sequences included MI6 agents after the MI6 headquarters explosion; a funeral for MI6 agents; Sévérine at Shanghai International Airport; a scene with M and Mallory; the first scenes featuring M's assistant Vanessa; Bond running in Regent's Park; and scenes involving Sévérine's activities.
- #131
The film was originally to be shot in six countries, but budget cuts in January 2012 meant filming took place primarily in the United Kingdom, both on location and in the studio. Additional shooting was done in Turkey and China. Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands replaced Duntrune Castle in Argyll, Scotland as the location for the climate-related action scenes, though some of these were shot at Hankley Common in Surrey, England. Scenes originally planned for India or South Africa were shot in Turkey. In the end the film was shot in five countries: England, Scotland, China, Turkey and Japan. Very few shots were filmed on Hashima Island in Japan.
- #132
The title was floated in the media in 2011 as "Carte Blanche" or "Red Sky at Night". Earlier, in 2010, it was reported that a competition would be held to choose a title for the film from among the remaining Ian Fleming stories, the two most popular being "Risico" and "The Property of a Lady". "The Hildebrand Rarity" was also floated as a possible title. Around October 2011 the title "Skyfall" became the subject of new rumours when the internet domain names JamesBond-Skyfall.com and Skyfallthefilm.com were registered by the film's producers and its financiers MGM and Sony Pictures before any official announcement. The title "Skyfall" was confirmed when producer Michael G. Wilson called it "the worst kept secret in London" at a press conference on 3 November 2011. At that event it was announced that the film would not be based on any previously published Ian Fleming James Bond novel or short story.
- #133
This is the second consecutive James Bond film whose opening sequence features a car chase. The chase was originally written and designed for The World Is Not Enough (1999) but was scrapped because the film's story grew too large. The car chase in this film involved a fleet of twelve Land Rover Defenders and sixteen Audi A5s, all modified and reinforced in different ways to meet the requirements of the stunt and camera departments. Two of the Defenders used "pods" mounted on the vehicle's roof for Miss Eve Moneypenny (eight feet above the ground), which allowed former "Stig" Ben Collins to drive at fifty miles per hour (eighty kilometres per hour) through the crowded streets of Istanbul while she concentrated on delivering dialogue. Multiple British rally champion Mark Higgins was Harris's double in the wide shots of the Land Rover moving through traffic. Other changes made to the vehicles for the showpiece scene included separate wheels for greater stability, a switch from manual to automatic, modified engines for more power, and the addition of internal roll cages for protection and safety.
- #134
Producer Michael G. Wilson has appeared regularly in the official James Bond series since The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), beginning with Goldfinger (1964). Wilson's small role in this film was mostly cut, but a photograph of him still appears in the film. The deleted scene was a funeral procession of hearses, with Wilson's miniature as a pallbearer. Wilson is still visible in the film at a distance through a doorway in the scene where Dame Judi Dench's M stands beside MI6 coffins draped in Union Jack flags.
- #135
M's house appeared for the fourth time in an official Bond film. The first was M's (Bernard Lee's) "Quarterdeck" estate in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). The second and third came much later, with M's (Dame Judi Dench's) homes in Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008). Counting the unofficial Casino Royale (1967), which also shows M's house, this is the fifth film to do so.
- #136
A real-life BBC newsreader appears as a BBC news anchor reading the news.
- #137
Contains a major spoiler — show
The wounded agent James Bond tries to rescue in the opening scene is named Ronson. This is also the name of a popular lighter brand used by Bond in Ian Fleming's novels.
- #138
James Bond (Daniel Craig) is given a Walther PPK/S 9 mm short firearm by Q (Ben Whishaw). The Walther PPK is considered the most popular and best-known Bond weapon, as it is the gun he uses most. Bond initially used a Beretta, but the Walther PPK later replaced it. His pistol uses a palm-print-coded hand recognition feature. Timothy Dalton's Bond also used a weapon with the same feature in Licence to Kill (1989).
- #139
Contains a major spoiler — show
Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe) is the ninth Bond Girl in the official series to be killed by Bond's main villain after falling for James Bond's charms and then betraying or failing the villain. Usually one of two Bond Girls serves as the sacrificial-lamb element of the story. They do not all die at the villain's hands, but they do end up dead. In this film Sévérine is tortured and then shot by Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem). Sévérine's predecessors include: Jill Masterton (Shirley Eaton), painted entirely gold by Oddjob and/or suffocated by Goldfinger in Goldfinger (1964); Helga Brandt (Karin Dor), fed to piranhas by Blofeld in You Only Live Twice (1967); Rosie Carver (Gloria Hendry), shot in Bay Big's (Dr. Kananga's) scarecrow in Live and Let Die (1973); Andrea Anders (Maud Adams), shot by Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974); Corinne Dufour (Corinne Cléry), torn apart and killed by Drax's Doberman dogs after Drax ends her employment in Moonraker (1979); Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher), shot by Elliot Carver's assassin Dr. Kaufman in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997); Solange (Caterina Murino), tortured, killed and wrapped in a hammock by Le Chiffre's men in Casino Royale (2006); and Strawberry Fields (Gemma Arterton), coated in oil and scratched by Dominic Greene's henchmen in Quantum of Solace (2008). Those who survived after betraying the villain include Domino (Claudine Auger) in Thunderball (1965), Solitaire (Jane Seymour) in Live and Let Die (1973) and Lupe Lamora (Talisa Soto) in Licence to Kill (1989).
- #140
John Cleese was reportedly not asked to reprise the role of Q. He later gave an interview to Radio Times in which he implied that he had been dropped from the role partly because the film's bosses wanted to please audiences in Asia.
- #141
The film is said to have used a large amount of computer-generated imagery, with roughly 500 CGI shots, the highest number since Die Another Day (2002). Much of the visual effects work in this film was created by about 850 staff at Technicolor's post-production company The Moving Picture Company, 250 in Bangalore and 600 in London. Animators, graphic artists, visual effects technicians and other visual effects specialists worked for eight months to create thousands of frames, computer animation, graphic overlays and high-end visual effects that combined all of the film's digital content.
- #142
Contains a major spoiler — show
Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) is the second Bond villain to die by being stabbed in the back, after Aristotle Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only (1981).
- #143
The exploding MI6 building was in fact a meticulously produced model.
- #144
Despite the long-standing collaboration between director Sir Sam Mendes and composer Thomas Newman, it was initially expected that James Bond's veteran composer David Arnold would provide the score for this film. However, in January 2012 it was finally announced that Newman would compose the music. This is only the sixth time (out of twenty-three films) that a James Bond film's score was not written by Monty Norman, John Barry or David Arnold. It is a myth that Arnold was unable to score this film because of his role as music director of the 2012 London Olympics. In numerous interviews he stated that Newman was chosen because of his ongoing work with Mendes. In October 2012 David Arnold announced on Twitter that the producers had licensed some of the music from Casino Royale (2006) for this film.
- #145
Although this film had the most product placement of any James Bond film compared with its predecessors, it was the first in twenty-three years (since Licence to Kill, 1989) neither to introduce a brand-new car model nor to showcase a model in a major action scene. Every Bond film since Die Another Day (2002) had featured a wide range of vehicles produced by Ford's Premier Automotive Group, which then included Aston Martin, Land Rover, Jaguar and Volvo. After Quantum of Solace (2008) was shot, however, Ford completely disbanded its foreign brand portfolio and with it the company's product placement arrangement. As a result, no Fords appear in this film, and current Land Rover and Jaguar production vehicles are shown only in brief shots. The only car shown at length in this film is Bond's famous 1964 Aston Martin DB5, first seen in Goldfinger (1964) and featured in a total of six Bond films. As a series icon and an automotive classic, the DB5's presence in the films was never part of a product placement deal (although the company did pay to place its modern Vanquish and DBS models in earlier films). As of 2015 it is the last modern Bond film to hold that distinction, since Aston Martin unveiled the then-new DB10 model as part of a promotional deal for Spectre (2015).
- #146
While discussing a possible retirement plan with M, Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes) is told he will be awarded "D. C. M. G. With honours". "D. C. M. G." stands for "Dame Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George", a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by the Prince Regent George, later King George IV, while he was serving as regent for his father King George III. It is awarded to men and women who hold high office or render extraordinary or important non-military service in a foreign country, and may also be awarded for important or loyal service in relation to foreign and Commonwealth affairs. Dame Judi Dench holds the DBE, Dame of the Order of the British Empire.
- #147
The explosion scene at the climax was shot over two consecutive nights. This is the second consecutive James Bond film whose climax ends with a landmark building being blown up. In Quantum of Solace (2008) it was a desert facility; here it is a mansion in the Scottish countryside. Ironically, before the big explosion, Javier Bardem was banned from smoking on set because of the fire risk from the dry grass in the area where the film set was located.
- #148
The film contains a recurring dialogue exchange in which Miss Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and Kincade (Albert Finney) say "The old ways are usually the best." It occurs twice.
- #149
The climax of the opening chase scene takes place at the breathtaking Varda Bridge, about an hour's drive (depending on travel speed) from Adana in southern Turkey. The stone-arch structure is also known by other names, including the German Bridge (German Viaduct), Koca Köprü (the Great Viaduct), the Varda Viaduct and the Giaour Dere Viaduct. Construction began in 1905 and was completed in 1916; the bridge is about five hundred and seventy feet (one hundred and seventy-four metres) long and three hundred and twenty-two feet (ninety-eight metres) high. The viaduct was designed and built for the former Ottoman Empire by German Imperial engineers as part of the Istanbul-Baghdad Railway Project.
- #150
A total of twenty Honda CRF250R motorcycles were used in the opening motorcycle chase. The sequence is notable for being performed on narrow rooftop rails and without any helmets or heavy-duty protective equipment. The "Police" and "Street Merchant" bikes were ridden by stunt riders, and because of the high speed of the chase, the stunt teams filming it also rode camera-carrying bikes. For this film, the Honda motorcycles were specially modified for the stunt scene by Chris Corbould's special effects team.
- #151
It is the first James Bond film in ten years to have a theme song that shares the film's title.
- #152
The film's premiere was held in late 2012 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the James Bond film series. Previous Bond films released around similar celebrations include Die Another Day (2002) for the series' 40th anniversary, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) for its 35th anniversary, The Living Daylights (1987) for its 25th anniversary and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) for its 15th anniversary. The world premiere of this film took place a few weeks after the 50th anniversary of the release of Dr. No (1962) on 10 May 1962. A new Bond documentary was also made and released to mark the series' Golden anniversary. It was titled "Everything or Nothing (2012)" and was released on 5 October 2012.
- #153
To prepare for the demanding physical requirements of her action role as Miss Eve Moneypenny, Naomie Harris was given a personal trainer and worked out for about two months, two hours a day, five days a week. For this she did yoga, kickboxing, running and circuit training. She also took fight training one day a week, stunt driving training one to two days a week, and spent three days a week firing weapons at a shooting range, learning to shoot machine guns and Walther PPKs.
- #154
M (Dame Judi Dench) mentions that she ran MI6's Hong Kong operations until 1997, even though Dench first appeared as M in GoldenEye (1995). The reason for this apparent contradiction is that the James Bond series was reset or rebooted starting with Casino Royale (2006), and Dench is in fact playing two separate versions of the same character.
- #155
It is the seventh James Bond film in which the villain lives in an island hideout. The home of Tiago Rodriguez, also known as Raoul Silva, is Hashima Island, an abandoned island near Nagasaki, Japan. The others were: * Dr. No (1962) - Crab Key Island. * Thunderball (1965) - Largo's Palmyra estate in the Bahamas. * You Only Live Twice (1967) - Blofeld's Japanese island volcano lair. * Live and Let Die (1973) - Mr. Big's (Dr. Kananga's) fictional Caribbean island of San Monique. * The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) - Scaramanga's island. * The World Is Not Enough (1999) - Elektra King and Renard's Maiden's Tower island in the Bosphorus, Turkey.
- #156
This is only the fourth James Bond film in the official series whose title text does not allow the 007 symbol to be formed by creating one or two "0"s for marketing purposes. The others include Thunderball (1965), Live and Let Die (1973) and The Living Daylights (1987). This is the fifth if the unofficial Never Say Never Again (1983) is included.
- #157
Ralph Fiennes (Gareth Mallory), Rory Kinnear (Bill Tanner) and Ben Whishaw (Q), all now regular MI6 characters in the James Bond film series, have each played "Hamlet" on stage, at Broadway, The National Theatre and The Old Vic respectively.
- #158
The film used more varied locations for shooting in Great Britain, particularly London and Scotland, than any other James Bond film in the series' history. Several different locations in London were used for interiors and exteriors, some of which are not normally accessible for filming. The London locations include Vauxhall Bridge; Millbank; the Old Vic Tunnels; an underground car park on Great Suffolk Street; Trinity Square; the entrance to Broadgate Tower; the Virgin Active Pool in Canary Wharf; Cadogan Square; the National Portrait Gallery; Parliament Square; Tower Hill; the roof of the Department of Energy and Climate Change building; Smithfield Meat Market; St. Bartholomew's Hospital; Charing Cross Underground Station; the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich; Southwark; Whitehall; and London's iconic Trafalgar Square.
- #159
Director Sir Sam Mendes said he initially planned to open the film with the James Bond gun barrel sequence but realised this would conflict with the shot in which Bond first comes into focus in the opening scene. (Making lemonade out of lemons. Placing it at the end allowed this film to commemorate the series' 50th anniversary.)
- #160
After his first conversation with Q, Bond says to himself the phrase "brave new world," a quotation from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest (in this case an observation on Q's youth) and from Aldous Huxley's novel.
- #161
Ola Rapace played the henchman "Patrice," who speaks not a single word of dialogue despite being on screen for more than fifteen minutes in the pre-title chase and the Shanghai scenes. Ola is the ex-husband of Noomi Rapace, who appeared in the Swedish adaptation The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). Daniel Craig appeared in the American adaptation, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011). Rapace became the fourth Scandinavian actor to play a James Bond villain in three Bond films. Mads Mikkelsen played the villain "Le Chiffre" in Casino Royale (2006), Jesper Christensen played the villain "Mr. White" in this film and Quantum of Solace (2008), and Ulrich Thomsen appeared in The World Is Not Enough (1999).
- #162
For the first time in EON Productions' official film series, M's first and last name is revealed as Gareth Mallory (though this is before he becomes M). Bernard Lee's M had the first name Miles, spoken aloud in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and his successor Robert Brown was confirmed by the producers to be the same Miles, not Admiral Hargreaves (played by Brown in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)) as some fans believe. Dame Judi Dench's M was never given a first and last name, though in Casino Royale (2006) Bond says one of her names begins with the letter M before being cut off by her (and in some drafts of the GoldenEye (1995) script her name is given as "Barbara Mawdsley," but this was never spoken aloud in the final film and is therefore not considered canon).
- #163
Contains a major spoiler — show
Daniel Craig's first James Bond film, Casino Royale (2006), is a complete reboot of the 007 character, in which Bond is shown earning his "Double-0" status by carrying out the first two official kills of his career. In that film he killed a total of eleven people. In Quantum of Solace (2008) he killed seventeen people. In this film, not counting allied killings or deaths for which he is indirectly responsible, Bond causes at least eighteen definite intentional deaths directly or actively. His first kill (Patrice) does not occur until roughly fifty minutes in. When the Daniel Craig films reset the timeline, they invalidate all the kill counts of the older Bonds from previous films, giving this iteration of the character a total career of forty-six kills so far.
- #164
Contains a major spoiler — show
In Spectre (2015), it is revealed that Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) worked for S.P.E.C.T.R.E.
- #165
It is the first James Bond film released in IMAX format. Unlike most films blown up for IMAX release, the film did not go through the DMR (Digital Media Remastering) process, because cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins felt the film's image quality was high enough to make it unnecessary. Deakins said: "…they shot 2.35:1 (aspect ratio), but because of the size of the chip there's so much area at the top and bottom that I basically shot for both formats. IMAX was clean and the image quality was magnificent because you use the full size of the chip. So I saw a lot of tests and IMAX surprised me. We did a 4K finish and after that the magnificent quality of 2K surprised me quite a bit." Films shot in IMAX have a 1.44:1 aspect ratio that fills the entire IMAX screen. This film was not shot in IMAX, but the aspect ratio of IMAX "Skyfall" prints is 1.90:1 compared with standard cinema "Skyfall" prints, which have a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The IMAX image is twenty-six percent larger at the top and bottom of the frame than the screen image in conventional cinemas, thus offering audiences a greater depth of viewing area.
- #166
The title's meaning and relevance is a reference to "Skyfall Lodge" ("Skyfall Glencoe" or "Skyfall House"), the name of James Bond's Scottish childhood ancestral home. In the books, Ian Fleming gave James Bond the real-life lineage of the Peckham Bonds. The real-life Bond family motto, "Orbis non sufficit" ("The World is not enough"), was used in the novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and as the title of the film The World Is Not Enough (1999). The Bond family arms were once displayed in St. Giles' Church in Camberwell but were destroyed in a fire in the 1800s. Similarly, in this film the fate of "Skyfall" is a fire. This film forms the third part of an unofficial trilogy about Bond's lineage; the first and second parts are in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) and The World Is Not Enough (1999). Producer Barbara Broccoli said the film "has some emotional context which will be revealed in the film," which also applies to Quantum of Solace (2008).
- #167
A real-life CNN news anchor appears as a CNN news anchor reporting on the MI6 agency.
- #168
Screenwriter Peter Morgan left the production when development work was halted due to MGM's bankruptcy. Morgan later stated that ideas from his first draft, including the film's "big hook", were still retained by the screenwriting team of Logan, Purvis and Wade. Details of the script's characters and plot were tightly guarded during principal photography; the names and identities of several characters, such as those played by Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris and Albert Finney, were kept secret for several months. The script was heavily revised by John Logan even throughout filming; by the time shooting was completed it had been revised thirteen times since the third draft.
- #169
For the exterior scenes shot in Whitehall, amid the chase between James Bond and Tiago Rodriguez, also known as Raoul Silva, there were one hundred background vehicles, three hundred crew members, seven hundred fifty extras and cooperation from the bureaucracy of numerous government agencies. Permits, negotiations and authorizations for the London chase sequence were granted by British official bodies including Westminster City Council, Transport For London (TFL) and TFL Buses, the Met and CHX Police, London Underground, Network Rail, Herts Traffic Management Systems, the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Parks and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
- #170
Charles Trenet's song "Boum!" can be heard at Silva's hideout on Hashima Island. In the final battle in Scotland, when Silva's helicopter arrives, a cover of John Lee Hooker's "Boom Boom Boom Boom" is played over the loudspeakers.
- #171
This is the third consecutive James Bond film to deal with terrorism. The main type of terrorism depicted in the film is cyberterrorism. In an interview in the companion documentary Everything or Nothing (2012), producer Barbara Broccoli said that September 11 made the producers think about doing something more serious and that it might now be time to move away from Pierce Brosnan-style Bond films. In another interview Broccoli added: "In terms of September 11, we thought Die Another Day (2002) became too fantastical. That was something that had happened in previous Bond films too. There comes a time when you have to readjust the tone of the films to match the times we live in."
- #172
The reference to "Station H" in this film is a nod to MI6's Hong Kong office.
- #173
This film marks the return of title designer Daniel Kleinman, who created the opening titles and gun barrel sequences from GoldenEye (1995) to Casino Royale (2006). On the previous film Kleinman had been replaced by the American special effects company MK12. This is Kleinman's sixth outing as the series' title designer and his second collaboration on a James Bond film starring Daniel Craig.
- #174
Demand for the Wild and Wolf Scrabble mug used by Q, like the Royal Doulton porcelain bulldog paperweight, rose sharply shortly after the film's release.
- #175
The boat on which James Bond (Daniel Craig) and Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe) travel is named "The Chimera", which comes from Greek mythology and inspired the character of Sévérine. In real life the vessel is named "SY Regina" and is also known as "Medyat Regina".
- #176
The scene in which Tiago Rodriguez, also known as Raoul Silva, invites James Bond to a shooting contest is taken from the book "The Man With The Golden Gun".
- #177
Despite its clear association with Hashima Island, almost none of what is shown corresponds to the videos, the many existing photographs of the real location or Google satellite imagery. This indicates a combination of CGI and studio work in addition to location shooting.
- #178
Shot by perennial Oscar nominee Sir Roger Deakins, Skyfall was the first James Bond film to receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.
- #179
Skyfall is the first Daniel Craig James Bond film not to feature the American CIA agent Felix Leiter, who was played by Jeffrey Wright in Casino Royale (2006), Quantum of Solace (2008) and No Time to Die (2021).
- #180
The gadgets in Skyfall include a small radio tracking device; an NFC-enabled Sony Xperia T smartphone ("The Bond Phone"); an Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra Mid Size Chronometer watch; an Agusta Westland Merlin AW101 helicopter fitted with a public address system in its undercarriage to play music to the troops; the original silver birch Aston Martin DB5 with various fittings, including an unused ejector seat and two 20 mm Browning machine gun headlights; a Sony VAIO laptop; a Sony Xperia tablet; and a Walther PPK/S 9 mm short handgun with palm-reading grip security encoded to James Bond's palm prints.
- #181
In his DVD audio commentary, producer Michael G. Wilson said that many people felt Bond girl Bérénice Marlohe did not get enough screen time in the film.
- #182
Skyfall is the second film in the 007 series in which James Bond cries. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), he weeps when his wife Tracy (Dame Diana Rigg) is shot and killed by Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Telly Savalas) and Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat).
- #183
Dame Judi Dench and Sir Sam Mendes had previously worked together in the theatre on Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard", while Daniel Craig and Mendes had previously worked together on Road to Perdition (2002). Mendes and cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins had also previously worked together on Revolutionary Road (2008) and Jarhead (2005). Craig and Ben Whishaw had previously worked together on three films: Layer Cake (2004), Enduring Love (2004) and The Trench (1999). Skyfall is Javier Bardem's second collaboration with cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins; the first was No Country for Old Men (2007). Bardem played the main villain in both films.
- #184
Many new books about James Bond premiered in 2012, most of them in early October 2012, a few weeks before the film's release and around the time the series celebrated its 50th Golden Anniversary on 5 October 2012. The books included "Bond on Bond" by Sir Roger Moore; "The James Bond Archives" by Paul Duncan; "Bond on the film set: Filming Skyfall" by Greg Williams; "LIFE: 50 Years of James Bond" by the editors of LIFE Books; "James Bond 50 Years of Movie Posters" from DK Publishing; "The Music of James Bond" by Jon Burlingame; "James Bond Unmasked" by Bill Desowitz; "All About Bond" by Terry O'Neill; "Amazing & Extraordinary Facts - James Bond" by Michael Paterson; "The World of James Bond: From Dr. No to Skyfall" by Luke Quantrill; "Ken Adam Designs the Movies: James Bond and Beyond" by Christopher Frayling and Sir Ken Adam; and "The Many Lives and Deaths of James Bond: From Casino Royale to Skyfall" by Nader Elhefnawy; "James Bond: The Unofficial Reference to the Man, the Books, the Movies, and the Man Who Invented It All" by Jennifer Warner and LifeCaps; "How to Live the James Bond Lifestyle: The Complete Seminar" by Paul Kyriazi; the second 2012 edition of "James Bond 007: The Definitive Guide" written by Paul Fleming; "James Bond Drinks: The Complete Guide to the Drinks of James Bond" written by David Leigh; "Essential James Bond Quotes" written by William Rogers; and the second edition of "A Brief Guide to James Bond" written by Nigel Cawthorne.
- #185
When Bond's motorcycle comes down into the market, the tyres visibly compress on landing. This was done so that they would not be affected by the impact.
- #186
The sailing yacht in the film is the 56-metre "Regina", built in Turkey in 2011 by Pruva Yachting. It was put up for sale in 2017 for 9.4 million dollars.
- #187
Skyfall was the third James Bond film to be shot in Istanbul; the first was From Russia with Love (1963) and the second was The World Is Not Enough (1999). It shares two of its shooting locations with the classic James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963): Turkey and Scotland (although the Scottish scenes in From Russia with Love (1963) were not set in that country). The film was also said to have been given the title "Red Sky at Night", a phrase that once evoked Russia or the old sailors' warning that a red sky is a natural sign to stay in port. The Turkish locations the film shares with From Russia with Love (1963) include Istanbul's Sultanahmet Square and the Hagia Sophia Mosque, which is now a museum. Producer Barbara Broccoli claims that Ian Fleming's favourite city was Istanbul.
- #188
Contains a major spoiler — show
Three of Ian Fleming's novels can be seen to have influenced Skyfall. The opening sequences in which James Bond is "missing or presumed dead" recall the ending of "You Only Live Twice", in which Bond suffers memory loss, is "missing or presumed dead" and M writes his obituary for the London Times. His assessment upon returning to London resembles the tests at the beginning of "The Man With the Golden Gun" after his return from Japan and Russia. The emotional ending recalls the conclusion of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service", in which Bond mourns losing his wife in his arms.
- #189
Skyfall, the second James Bond film after Die Another Day (2002), features four actors who are Oscar winners or Oscar nominees: Dame Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney.
- #190
Contains a major spoiler — show
Ralph Fiennes is the fourth actor or actress to play the character "M" in the official series; his character, Gareth Mallory, becomes M at the end of Skyfall. Bernard Lee was the first actor to play M, from 1962 to 1979, in films with Sir Sean Connery, George Lazenby and some of Sir Roger Moore's films. Robert Brown later played M in four films, in the remainder of Moore's films and in the Dalton films. Dame Judi Dench played M from 1995 to 2012, and her final main appearance was in Skyfall (although she returned for a small cameo in the later film Spectre (2015)). Counting the unofficial Bond films, in which John Huston and Edward Fox played M in Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983) respectively, Fiennes's M is the sixth actor or actress to play the character.
- #191
Skyfall is the last Bond screenplay written by the writing team of Purvis and Wade in consecutive succession. Neal Purvis and Robert Wade wrote Bond screenplays for fifteen years and five films, beginning with The World Is Not Enough (1999). They worked on Die Another Day (2002), Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008), and decided to continue after this film.
- #192
When Q hands Bond the Walther PPK and his passport at the National Gallery in London, the painting behind him is Joseph Wright of Derby's "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768)", which depicts a natural philosopher, a pioneer of the modern scientist, demonstrating an experiment to curious onlookers. This suits Q's role in scientific research and development for the S.I.S., MI6 and 007. The painting is also known for being used on the cover of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's "Frankenstein".
- #193
James Bond's first kill in Skyfall does not occur until about fifty minutes into the film, and it could be argued that it does not count as a deliberate murder since Patrice's hand slips. Technical details aside, M had ordered Bond to kill Patrice after interrogating him, so the kill was inevitable, even if early.
- #194
The traditional end-of-film James Bond series coda "James Bond Will Return" was included in the final title sequence.
- #195
Skyfall was the fourth James Bond film to be shot in Scotland, after From Russia with Love (1963) (various locations in Argyll and Bute), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) (Faslane Naval Base) and The World Is Not Enough (1999) (Eilean Donan Castle at Kyle of Lochalsh in the Highlands). Counting the unofficial Casino Royale (1967), shot in Killin, Stirling, it is the fifth Bond film shot in Scotland. The first actor to play James Bond on the big screen was the Scottish Sir Sean Connery. The Scottish Dalness Estate once belonged to the Fleming family, and Ian Fleming loved the Scottish region so much that he gave James Bond a Scottish lineage; the character's father, Andrew, came from Glencoe, where this film was shot, beside the mountain Buachaille Etive Mor. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), James Bond was seen wearing a kilt.
- #196
For a long time during development and pre-production, the film was known only as "Bond 23". Other titles reportedly considered for the film were "A Killing Moon", "Once Upon a Spy" and "Silver Bullet". In 2011, the titles mentioned in the media amid unfounded rumours were "Carte Blanche" and "Red Sky at Night". Earlier, in 2010, it was reported that a competition would be held to choose a title for the film from among Ian Fleming's remaining stories; the two most popular were "Risico" and "The Property of a Lady". "The Hildebrand Rarity" was also floated as a possible title.
- #197
Skyfall marks the tenth anniversary of "Bond on the Film Set," the now-standard book that documents the shooting of a James Bond film with photographs taken by Bond's regular stills photographer Greg Williams. Skyfall is the fourth book in the "Bond on the Film Set" series; the first was published in 2002 alongside Die Another Day (2002). Before that, Bond films had "making of" books such as those for GoldenEye (1995) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).
- #198
Some of the cast have their own favourites from the film series' past. Javier Bardem, who plays the villain in this film, names Jaws from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979) as his favourite Bond villain. Bond girls Bérénice Marlohe and Naomie Harris say their favourite Bond girls are, respectively, Famke Janssen from GoldenEye (1995) and Grace Jones from A View to a Kill (1985).
- #199
This is the twenty-third James Bond film in EON Productions' official series and the twenty-fifth James Bond film released in cinemas, counting the unofficial Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983). Counting the television episode Climax! as well, it is also the twenty-sixth James Bond film (1954, first season, third episode, "Casino Royale"). The video game 007 Legends (2012), which is tied to Skyfall and features the "Skyfall" mission, is likewise the twenty-third game in the James Bond video game series.
- #200
This is the eleventh occasion in the official James Bond series in which Bond is seen playing a game with the main villain or taking part in some kind of sport or activity. Here Bond has to take part in a shooting contest with Raoul Silva using Ardesa 1871 duelling pistols, described as percussion pistols. Bond's previous rounds with villains include playing golf with Goldfinger (1964), Texas Hold 'Em poker with Le Chiffre in Casino Royale (2006), baccarat and skeet shooting with Emilio Largo in Thunderball (1965), backgammon with Kamal Khan in Octopussy (1983), and tarot cards and pheasant with Mr. Big (Dr. Kananga) in Live and Let Die (1973). The list also includes shooting with Drax in Moonraker (1979), horse riding with Max Zorin in A View to a Kill (1985), toy tabletop war games with Brad Whitaker in The Living Daylights (1987), fencing with Gustav Graves in Die Another Day (2002), and pistol duels and funhouse games with Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). If the World Domination video game played by Maximillian Largo in the unofficial Never Say Never Again (1983) is counted, this is the twelfth time.
- #201
Filming on this film began in 2011, the thirtieth year that casting director Debbie McWilliams had worked on the series. McWilliams's first James Bond film was For Your Eyes Only (1981). For this film McWilliams coordinated casting sessions held in various parts of the world, among them Athens, Greece; Beijing and Shanghai, China; Istanbul, Turkey; London, England; Madrid, Spain; Stockholm, Sweden; and Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- #202
Filming at Pinewood Studios used thirty-one different sets across eight different sound stages, including the huge "007 Stage." The main sets included the Golden Dragon Casino and the Paddock Lot on D Stage, the exterior of Dead City Island on the North Lot, and the interior of MI6's underground bunker headquarters on the "007 Stage"; the latter took nine weeks and two hundred and fifty crew members were needed to build the set.
- #203
Contains a major spoiler — show
Villains in the James Bond film series usually have some physiological disorder or feature that makes them distinguishable. For this film, Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) has a false jaw. This is because he attempted suicide by implanting a hydrogen cyanide capsule in his left rear molar; it broke open and physically damaged his lower jawbone. Interestingly, Jaws (Richard Kiel) from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), another villain with a false jaw, is Bardem's favourite Bond villain. Similarly, Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe), initially presented as a hostile femme fatale working with Silva, has a tattoo on her wrist as a distinguishing feature. However, as her true character is revealed, it is discovered that the tattoo means she belongs to the sex trade in Macau.
- #204
Since Dr. No (1962), this is the second time in the Bond series that three new cast members playing recurring characters have been introduced in the same film at the same time. In GoldenEye (1995), three new cast members were brought in for three recurring roles: Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, Dame Judi Dench as M and Samantha Bond as Miss Moneypenny. This film also has three: Ralph Fiennes as M, Ben Whishaw as Q and Naomie Harris as Miss Eve Moneypenny. In The Living Daylights (1987), two new actors playing recurring characters were introduced: Timothy Dalton as James Bond and Caroline Bliss as Miss Moneypenny.
- #205
Adele's title song "Skyfall" became the first James Bond theme to enter the top 10 of the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, entering at number eight. It is the seventh Bond song to reach the US Top 10 and the thirteenth Bond song to reach the US Top 100. It was the first song to appear in the US Top 10 in a decade; the most recent had been Madonna's song for Die Another Day (2002) in 2002. Adele's song sold two hundred and sixty-one thousand copies in its first three days in the US. Just forty-eight hours after its release, the song entered the UK Singles Chart at number four and then rose to number two within a week, making it the highest-charting Bond song in UK singles history, ahead of the previous record holder, Duran Duran's "A View to a Kill (1985) (Dance into the Fire)." The song sold eighty-four thousand copies in its first two days in the UK and ninety-two thousand copies in a week. It rose to number one on the UK iTunes chart within ten hours. On its first day of worldwide release, the song entered the Top 10 of iTunes charts in twenty-one countries. Of these, it also rose to number one in Belgium, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and Sweden.
- #206
After years of delay, the Metropolitan Police finally began phasing out its traditional striped uniform during the making of this film, replacing it with the national high-visibility police livery ("Battenburg") that most UK police forces had adopted since the early 2000s. As a result, this is probably the last major film to prominently feature the distinctive vehicle markings (although a few do appear in the new design as well).
- #207
This is the first James Bond film to have two separate train action sequences involving different trains. From Russia with Love (1963), Live and Let Die (1973), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Octopussy (1983) and GoldenEye (1995) all had only one locomotive. This film is also the second Bond film with a fight on the roof of a train; the first was Octopussy (1983). In addition, Charing Cross Underground Station was used as the filming location for the Temple and Westminster Underground stations seen in the film.
- #208
The vehicles appearing in this film include: a Range Rover Vogue SE; a 3.0 L V6 diesel Jaguar XJ L; a Range Rover Evoque; black 2007 Audi A5 B8 cars; a Mercedes-Benz; a Stornoway metallic grey Land Rover Defender 110 long-wheelbase double-cab commercial vehicle; a Caterpillar 320D L hydraulic excavator; 1998 Volkswagen Type 1C Beetles; an AgustaWestland Merlin AW101 helicopter; various Honda CRF 250R motorcycles; and the classic James Bond car, the silver birch Aston Martin DB5.
- #209
Because it was the film series' 50th anniversary, there were many tributes and references to the older films. For example, when James Bond hands scrap metal to an agent he says "for her eyes only." This was a reference to For Your Eyes Only (1981). The Aston Martin DB5 and the scene in which M asks Bond how old he was when his parents died were references to Goldfinger (1964). The palm-print recognition gun grips were a reference to Licence to Kill (1989). The scene in which Bond enters M's house is a reference to Casino Royale (2006). The explosion at MI6 was a reference to The World Is Not Enough (1999). Bond's mention of his parents was a reference to GoldenEye (1995), and of course Bond's iconic "Bond, James Bond" introduction to a lady in a tuxedo at the casino and Q giving Bond a Walther PPK were references to those iconic moments in the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962).
- #210
This is the first James Bond film in twenty-three years to show the "traditional" series M's office; the last time was in Licence to Kill (1989). It is also the first time in the series that both the old "traditional" and the new "modern" type of M office are seen in the same film. In fact, this film has three M offices: the old "traditional" type seen in the series since GoldenEye (1995), the new "modern" MI6 type, and M's temporary office in the underground bunker.
- #211
A professional motorcycle racer who is not credited in the titles appears as a motorcycle rider in the opening chase scene.
- #212
James Bond spends roughly a third of this film unshaven, which is unusual for the character. He finally shaves (or is shaved) at around the fifty-three-minute mark.
- #213
This is the second time Rory Kinnear plays MI6 Chief of Staff Bill Tanner in a James Bond film. He first took the role in Quantum of Solace (2008). With this film, Kinnear has played Tanner twice in the films and three times in the video games, meaning he has played the character more than any other actor.
- #214
Contains a major spoiler — show
Ben Whishaw (Q), James Bond's (Daniel Craig's) gadget man, was also the person who let him out in the final scene of Layer Cake (2004).
- #215
The combined total of individual Academy Awards received by the cast and crew is as follows. Crew: director Sir Sam Mendes (one win), cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins (twelve nominations), first script draft by Peter Morgan (two nominations), final script by John Logan (three nominations), composer Thomas Newman (twelve nominations), designer Dennis Gassner (one win and three further nominations) and special effects by Chris Corbould (one win). Cast: Javier Bardem (two nominations, one win), Ralph Fiennes (two nominations), Albert Finney (five nominations) and Dame Judi Dench (five nominations and one win), at least forty-one nominations and five wins.
- #216
Thomas Newman's score for Skyfall contains the most cues of any James Bond film score, with thirty. The previous record in the official series was held by Casino Royale (2006) with twenty-five, followed by Quantum of Solace (2008) with twenty-four. The unofficial Never Say Never Again (1983), with twenty-six cues, previously held the record for any Bond film and now ranks second. The Skyfall album was the second James Bond soundtrack not to include the title song, Adele's "Skyfall"; the first was Chris Cornell's title song "You Know My Name," which did not appear on the Casino Royale (2006) soundtrack. The film's end titles use composer David Arnold's arrangement of Monty Norman's "James Bond Theme" ("The Name's Bond… James Bond"), which also does not appear on the soundtrack. The score also includes interpolations of Monty Norman's original "James Bond Theme." The entire soundtrack was composed and conducted by Thomas Newman except for "Komodo Dragon," an instrumental interpolation of the film's "Skyfall" theme song. It is also the first Daniel Craig Bond film to use Norman's original "James Bond Theme" throughout (in Casino Royale (2006) a fully orchestrated version played during the end title sequence, and in Quantum of Solace (2008) it played during the gun barrel sequence and at the start of the end title sequence).
- #217
Skyfall is the first James Bond film shot in China and Japan since You Only Live Twice (1967). Timothy Dalton's planned third Bond film, "Property of a Lady," was also to have gone to these locations as well as Scotland.
- #218
James Bond's line to Miss Eve Moneypenny, "Don't touch your ear," marks the second time he instructs a fellow agent not to delegate their mission to others; the first was in Casino Royale (2006), during the botched opening chase, when the agent did exactly that and alerted his target to their presence.
- #219
Daniel Craig lobbied for Sir Sam Mendes to direct, having previously worked with him on Road to Perdition (2002).
- #220
Naomie Harris is the fourth actress of Jamaican origin to play a Bond Girl. American Grace Jones was the third, in A View to a Kill (1985). Jones was born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, while Harris's mother is Jamaican and Naomie spent some of her childhood there. Ian Fleming wrote the James Bond stories at Goldeneye in Jamaica. The first Bond Girl in the official series was Swiss actress Ursula Andress, first seen emerging from Jamaica's calm waters in a white bikini in Dr. No (1962). Marguerite LeWars was the first: she was Miss Jamaica, and the production team cast her for a role in the film when they met her at Kingston Airport, where she worked. Martine Beswick was the second Jamaican actress and the only Jamaican to appear twice: as the gypsy Zora in From Russia with Love (1963) and as the ill-fated Paula in Thunderball (1965).
- #221
Naomie Harris is the fourth actress to play Miss Moneypenny in the official series. Counting Pamela Salem in the unofficial Never Say Never Again (1983) and Casino Royale (1967), Harris is the sixth; in the latter the character was technically Miss Moneypenny's daughter. Harris's Moneypenny is named Eve, the first time the character has been given a name in the official series. This film marks the character's first appearance in the series since Die Another Day (2002). Harris is also the first black actress to play the role. Lois Maxwell first played Miss Moneypenny in fourteen James Bond films from 1962 to 1985, across all of Sir Sean Connery's, George Lazenby's and Sir Roger Moore's films. Maxwell was followed by Caroline Bliss in two films during the Timothy Dalton era and by Samantha Bond in four films during the Pierce Brosnan era. This film represents the first time Miss Eve Moneypenny is a fully fledged main Bond Girl rather than a supporting character.
- #222
The helicopter seen at the end of the film is an AgustaWestland Merlin AW101. An AgustaWestland Merlin AW139 helicopter appeared in the "Happy and Glorious" opening sequence of the 2012 London Olympics, in which stuntmen Mark Sutton and Gary Connery parachuted from the sky dressed as James Bond and Queen Elizabeth II respectively.
- #223
During the opening titles, several daggers are planted into a graveyard. One of the daggers is a Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife, which as of 2013 had been issued to British Special Forces from World War II to the present day.
- #224
Skyfall is the third James Bond film to be shot in Japan. Hashima Island stood in for Silva's island lair. The first Bond film shot in Japan, and the one with the most filming there, was You Only Live Twice (1967). The second was The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), which shot in Okinawa to photograph exotic fish.
- #225
Part of the film is set in Istanbul. Turkish producer Ali Akdeniz, who worked on The World Is Not Enough (1999) and this film, says this section was chosen specifically as a tribute to James Bond's connections with Istanbul, once known as "The City of Spies." Ian Fleming visited Istanbul in June 1955 for an INTERPOL conference on behalf of "The Sunday Times." The event provided a setting and much background information for the Bond novel From Russia with Love (1963). Fleming, for example, met the Oxford-educated Nazım Kalkavan, who inspired the character Darko Kerim. While there, Fleming also reported on the "Istanbul Pogroms" (the Istanbul Riots), published in "The Sunday Times" on 11 September 1955. When Fleming left the conference he travelled by train and said the experience was boring because there was no dining car. Interestingly, trains appear in this film and in From Russia with Love (1963): the London Underground and a Turkish train in Adana in this film, and the Orient Express in From Russia with Love (1963).
- #226
In Skyfall, Bond is seen shaving with a shaving brush and a straight razor, in contrast to Live and Let Die (1973), where he used aerosol shaving foam and a razor blade. Roger Moore sat on the board of the company that made Brut, and the bathroom scene in that film featured Brut shaving cream and antiperspirant products.
- #227
The title song of the later Bond film No Time to Die (2020), performed by Billie Eilish, broke the record for the biggest opening week ever for a James Bond theme/title song in the United Kingdom. The track sold roughly 90,000 copies in its first seven days and also reached 10.6 million streams, rising to number 1 on the UK pop charts. Previously, Sam Smith's Spectre (2015) theme song 'Writing's On The Wall' held the record, selling about 70,000 copies when it was released in late 2015 and also reaching number 1 on the UK singles chart. Adele's title song for Skyfall (2012) sold about 84,000 copies when it was released in late 2012, which at the time placed it at number 2 in the UK pop chart.
- #228
Contains a major spoiler — show
Although he received second billing in the opening credits, Javier Bardem first appears at roughly the 71st minute of the film's total running time, at the effective midpoint.
- #229
The Royal World Premiere of Skyfall was held on Tuesday, 23 October 2012 at the Royal Albert Hall in the presence of His Majesty King Charles III and the Duchess of Cornwall (Queen Camilla). At the request of H.R.H. King Charles III, the Gala Charity Premiere supported the assistance of former and currently serving members of Britain's three intelligence agencies: GCHQ, the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service. King Charles III is the Royal Patron of the UK's Intelligence Services. Director Sir Sam Mendes and cast members Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Ben Whishaw and Dame Judi Dench also attended. The only previous Bond World Premiere held at the Royal Albert Hall was for the series' 40th anniversary, where Die Another Day (2002) debuted. The gala raised over £300,000 for the Prince's selected charities.
- #230
The weapons and firearms in Skyfall include: James Bond's father's Anderson Wheeler double-barrelled, break-action .500 calibre NE (Nitro Express) hunting rifle; Silva's reproduction Percussion Cap Ardesa 1871 Duel Pistol; Kincade's Colt Model 1878 shotgun; two Steyr M9-A1 pistols; various Heckler & Koch HK416 assault rifles belonging to Silva's men; Heckler & Koch G36C rifles with G36V carry handles used by Metropolitan Police CO19 officers; M4-style carbine assault rifles used by MI6 security officers; Miss Eve Moneypenny's Olympic Arms K23B rifle; various standard Glock 17 pistols; the semi-automatic Glock 18 machine-pistol-class weapon with a 100-round drum magazine used by Patrice, who also has a sniper rifle; and James Bond's Walther PPK/S 9mm short firearm, which is coded to his palm prints and has a palm-sensitive, hammer-actuated hand recognition feature. For weapons training, the actors went through two hundred thousand rounds of ammunition.
- #231
The message Silva sends to M before blowing up MI6, "Think on your sins", is an anagram of "Your son isn't in HK", which may reinforce the idea that Silva is M's son and left his post in Hong Kong.
- #232
The Caterpillar 320D L excavator seen in the film was specially manufactured because its floor and position required the cab to be on the right side of the machine.
- #233
The associate producer wears a black shirt beside Bond during the drinking game early in the film.
- #234
Product placements, brand integrations and promotional tie-ins include: Heineken Lager beer; Coca-Cola's Coke Zero; Bollinger champagne; Visit Britain Tourism's 'Live Like a Vine' campaign; the books "The James Bond Archives" and "SKYFALL: Bond on the film set"; Procter & Gamble fragrance; Virgin Atlantic; Literary Review magazine; Tom Ford clothing; Cartamundi playing cards; Omega watches, including the 50th Anniversary Seamaster Planet Ocean 600M "SKYFALL" Limited Edition watch; Swarovski jewellery; Corgi die-cast James Bond Skyfall toy Aston Martin DB5 cars; the London 2012 Olympics; Honda motorcycles; Hornby Scalextric car sets; Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles; Activision's 007 Legends (2012) video game; RT Marketing James Bond 007 merchandising; Sky TV's Sky Movies 007 HD Bond channel; and Sony Electronics products including Bravia televisions, Vaio laptops and computers, and Xperia tablets and smartphones, with the Sony Xperia TL phone and Heineken beer being two of the products that took on brand roles in the film. The London "Mirror" newspaper reported that around twenty-nine million pounds, roughly a third of the film's budget, came from commercial deals.
- #235
Skyfall is the first James Bond film to feature MGM's new 2012 logo. The first James Bond film to open with the MGM lion logo was Octopussy (1983). MGM merged with United Artists in 1982, a year before that film's premiere, which was the first Bond film distributed by the then-new company MGM/UA Distribution Company.
- #236
Stunt performer Tina Maskell was credited twice as a stunt artist in the credits.
- #237
The finale was planned to be shot at Duntrune Castle in Argyll, but the plan was cancelled shortly after filming began. Glencoe was chosen instead for shooting these scenes.
- #238
Skyfall includes the phrase "For her eyes only", a variation of the earlier James Bond short story, the compilation novel title and the film title For Your Eyes Only (1981). These were a variation on the real-life espionage term "Eyes Only", meaning restricted viewing for specific personnel. The website "The Free Dictionary" defines "Eyes Only" as "meant to be seen only by the addressee; confidential" and "official classification for documents; meant to be seen by only the person to whom it is directed."
- #239
Skyfall is full of product placements for airlines, soft drinks, watches and cigarettes (including a Marlboro theme song immediately preceded by a shot of a Marlboro billboard) through prominently placed logos, billboards and the like.
- #240
The opening train action scene was initially planned to be shot at the Sabarmati railway yard of the Konkan Railway in India. However, delays in obtaining permission to film there and many complicated problems meant this did not happen. South Africa was considered for the sequence, but it was ultimately shot in Turkey.
- #241
Skyfall marks Gregg Wilson's 10th anniversary in the James Bond film series. The film marks the milestone of Gregg becoming the first third-generation member of the Broccoli and Wilson families to receive a senior producer credit on the series, that is, the title of associate producer. Gregg is the son of Michael G. Wilson, the stepson of founding producer Albert R. Broccoli. Gregg's first achievement in the series came as development executive on Die Another Day (2002). Gregg was also associate producer on Quantum of Solace (2008).
- #242
Ben Whishaw (Q) has more screen time in Skyfall than John Cleese had in The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002) combined.
- #243
It was once incorrectly reported in the media that Danny Boyle had been asked to direct. Naomie Harris, one of the main Bond girls in Skyfall, appeared in Boyle's 28 Days Later (2002), which was released in the same year as Die Another Day (2002), the last Bond film to feature a Black Bond girl. Coincidentally, Boyle directed the James Bond short film that opened the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony, London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony: Isles of Wonder (2012), alongside Daniel Craig and Queen Elizabeth II.
- #244
Contains a major spoiler — show
The shoulder number on Silva's fake police uniform is 101, which is the London Metropolitan Police Force's non-emergency general contact telephone number.
- #245
Skyfall is included in "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," edited by Steven Schneider.
- #246
This is Daniel Craig's third outing as James Bond; Craig's first was Casino Royale (2006) and his second was Quantum of Solace (2008). Because Craig's first two Bond films used Fleming titles, this is the first James Bond film whose title is not taken from an original Ian Fleming story.
- #247
Heineken paid an estimated 45 million dollars for less than 10 seconds of screen time in Skyfall.
- #248
This is the second Daniel Craig James Bond film to feature a casino and his first since Casino Royale (2006). Not every Bond film includes a casino scene, but this film joins the official series entries that do: Dr. No (1962), Thunderball (1965), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Licence to Kill (1989), GoldenEye (1995), The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Casino Royale (2006). All of the unofficial Bond films — Casino Royale (1967), Never Say Never Again (1983) and Climax! (1954) season one, episode three, "Casino Royale" — featured a casino. This is the first Bond film to feature a casino in Asia since The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). It is called "The Golden Dragon Casino," a floating casino located in Macau, China, and is based on the real-life Macau floating casino "The Macau Palace."
- #249
Action films are often criticized for improper gun use and safety, most notably when characters keep their fingers on the triggers when not actively firing. Keeping fingers off the trigger is known as proper "trigger discipline." This film, however, contains a subtle example of proper gun safety in an action scene. In the hearing room, as Bond, Moneypenny and M fire at Silva and his men, there is a moment when Bond fires two fire extinguishers to create a smoke screen while crossing to the other side of the room. If you watch Moneypenny very carefully as she walks ahead of Bond, she not only takes her finger off the trigger but also turns the barrel safely downward to make sure she does not accidentally shoot Bond. Then, as she passes him, she raises the gun again, ready to fire. Whether actress Naomie Harris was trained to do this or did it on her own, the action is considered textbook gun safety.
- #250
Javier Bardem, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for No Country for Old Men (2007), became the second Oscar-winning actor to play a Bond villain. The first was Christopher Walken, for his role in The Deer Hunter (1978), in A View to a Kill (1985).
- #251
This is one of two Bond films nominated for the Best Original Score Oscar; the other is The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
- #252
Two Aston Martin DB5 hero cars were used for the scenes in which Bond and M travel from London to Scotland. One was a real DB5 with working gadgets (used in the Skyfall attack), and the other was used only for the car's motorway scenes. Both cars were reused in No Time to Die.
- #253
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Producer Barbara Broccoli said that filming M's death scene "was an extremely emotional day for all of us."
- #254
The film's explosive finale at the James Bond farm, "Skyfall," was compared by the public and by production staff, including director Sir Sam Mendes, to the booby-trap-filled climax of Home Alone (1990). Two members of the sound department, Dino Dimuro and David Young, worked on both films.
- #255
Bérénice Marlohe said her characterization of Bond girl Sévérine was inspired by two things: "The Chimera" from mythology and Famke Janssen's Bond girl character Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye (1995). This film is Marlohe's first English-language role, making her the sixth French actress to play a Bond girl; the others are Claudine Auger (Thunderball (1965)), Corinne Cléry (Moonraker (1979)), Carole Bouquet (For Your Eyes Only (1981)), Sophie Marceau (The World Is Not Enough (1999)) and Eva Green in Casino Royale (2006). Before this film, Marlohe had once appeared on a program wearing only a red wig and nothing else. Marlohe reportedly had no agent before this film, landed the role on her own and joined the cast quite late. Marlohe was born on 19 May 1979 in Paris, only a few months after Moonraker (1979) finished filming there.
- #256
This tenth James Bond film is the one produced by Michael G. Wilson as regular (non-executive) producer. The next James Bond film (Spectre (2015)) was expected to be released in 2014, the year that marked the Golden 50th anniversary of Wilson's association with the official James Bond series. Wilson first appeared uncredited as a soldier at Fort Knox in Goldfinger (1964). Similarly, this film premiered in 2012, the series' Golden 50th Anniversary Year. Wilson has also worked on the films as a screenwriter and legal, administrative and technical consultant, and is also known for his regular cameo appearances in the series.
- #257
This is one of several James Bond films to feature an English country house or manor. Others include the safe house The Blayden in The Living Daylights (1987); the Shrublands in Thunderball (1965) and Never Say Never Again (1983); and M's house "Quarterdeck" in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).
- #258
Javier Bardem wore a blond wig for the role after brainstorming with director Sir Sam Mendes to give the character a different visual look, which led some commentators to observe a resemblance between the character and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
- #259
Released in late 2012, this film was in cinemas in early 2013, marking the 30th anniversary of producer Barbara Broccoli's official association with the series, having first been credited as an executive assistant on Octopussy (1983). Broccoli's first involvement in the series, however, was an uncredited second assistant director title on Moonraker (1979); the 30th anniversary milestone of that came in 2009, after the premiere of Quantum of Solace (2008). 2012 also marks Broccoli's 25th anniversary as a producer on the series, since her first producer credit was as associate producer on The Living Daylights (1987). Executive producer and production manager Callum McDougall, who also began on the same James Bond film as an assistant director, shares the same 25th anniversary.
- #260
This is the third consecutive official James Bond film to be distributed by Sony Pictures, after Casino Royale (2006) and Quantum of Solace (2008). An official press release dated 13 April 2011 stated: "Sony Pictures and MGM look forward to Sony Pictures co-financing and distributing Spectre (2015) on a similar basis." This is Sony Pictures' widest cinema release in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with the film opening on one thousand five hundred screens.
- #261
Contains a major spoiler — show
This is the second film in which a character played by Javier Bardem uses a cyanide pill. Raoul Silva breaks a tooth containing hydrogen cyanide in order to commit suicide after months of torture. The cyanide disfigures him rather than killing him. In The Sea Inside (2004), Bardem's paralyzed character Ramon Sampedro is given a potassium cyanide solution by a friend. This allows him to die after fighting for twenty years for the right to assisted suicide. His suicide succeeds.
- #262
Silva's helicopter, which attacks the Skyfall manor, bears an orange-red logo resembling that of the Austrian Air Force, but the film leaves it open whether this hints at any connection of Silva's.
- #263
The DLC for the 2012 video game 007 Legends is based on the Istanbul chase and the killing of Patrice from Skyfall. Both cutscenes are exactly as in the film apart from the game's graphics (other than playing as Bond, since it is a first-person shooter). Because a DLC trailer was released alongside the film, this was intended to promote the film.
- #264
Patrice's (Ola Rapace's) weapon is a semi-automatic Glock 18 machine-pistol-class firearm with a hundred-round magazine that fires twenty rounds per second. The firearm has an effective range of fifty metres (fifty-five yards) and a muzzle velocity of around one thousand two hundred and thirty feet per second (three hundred and seventy-five metres per second). It is an Austrian weapon developed at the request of Austria's counter-terrorism unit EKO Cobra.
- #265
This is the second James Bond film to centre on an attack on the MI6 headquarters in London. The first was The World Is Not Enough (1999). Similarly, The Living Daylights (1987) showed a raid on MI6's rural safe house at Blayden.
- #266
Principal photography on this film lasted one hundred and twenty-seven days, and the film contains one hundred and seventy-two scenes.
- #267
This is the second James Bond film edited by Stuart Baird, after Casino Royale (2006). It is also the second Bond film for production designer Dennis Gassner; his first was Quantum of Solace (2008). It is the third Bond film on which Gary Powell, who worked in other stunt positions on the four other Bond films beginning with GoldenEye (1995), served as stunt coordinator. It is also the seventh Bond film on which Chris Corbould, who has worked on a total of thirteen Bond films beginning with The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), served as special effects supervisor.
- #268
The chase in Istanbul, Turkey, had originally been planned for The World Is Not Enough (1999).
- #269
In Dr. No (1962), Q (Peter Burton) takes away James Bond's (Sir Sean Connery's) Beretta M418 and calls it a "ladies' gun". Sévérine (Bérénice Marlohe) is another woman described in the Bond film series as a carrier.
- #270
Contains a major spoiler — show
This film, in which Swedes play the roles, has two henchmen. Ola Rapace played Patrice, and Jens Hultén played Silva's henchman, whom James Bond drowns in the lake in the film's final section. Counting Dolph Lundgren's Venz in A View to a Kill (1985), this is the second Bond film in which Swedes play supporting roles. Jens Hultén later took a more significant role in the other spy film series Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), as Janik Vinter, released the same year as another Bond film, Spectre (2015). Hultén's characters died in both this film and Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015).
- #271
Principal photography was planned to last one hundred and thirty-three days, but the actual shoot lasted only one hundred and twenty-eight.
- #272
Since Daniel Craig was first cast as James Bond, he has often been nicknamed "James Blond" because of his lighter hair, which differs significantly from Bond's usual dark hair. Because Javier Bardem has blond hair in this film, this was the first entry in the official series to feature both a Bond and a blond-haired main villain. Other blond Bond villains include Red Grant in From Russia with Love (1963), Hans in You Only Live Twice (1967), Erich Kriegler in For Your Eyes Only (1981), Venz in A View to a Kill (1985), Necros in The Living Daylights (1987), Peter Franks in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Stamper in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Goldie in The World Is Not Enough (1999). In the official series, however, Bardem is the second blond-haired Bond villain after Christopher Walken as Max Zorin in A View to a Kill (1985). Bardem would be third if one counts Gert Fröbe as the red-blond Auric Goldfinger (1964), and fourth if one counts Klaus Maria Brandauer as Maximillian Largo in the unofficial Never Say Never Again (1983). Bardem's blond hair in this film was not peroxide but a wig. The release of this film also came twenty-five years after the blond Bond Girl Kara Milovy (Maryam d'Abo) starred in The Living Daylights (1987). Since then, the only notable blond Bond Girl has been the supporting role of Professor Inga Bergstrom (Cecilie Thomsen) in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).
- #273
Albert Finney said he remembered watching the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962). The other actors were working in film and television when Dr. No (1962) was in cinemas. While Dame Judi Dench (M) appeared as Anya in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard (1962), Finney's film role closest to the release date of Dr. No (1962) was that of another great lover, Tom Jones (1963). There he acted alongside Diane Cilento, who was once married to Sir Sean Connery, the first James Bond of cinema and in fact the original choice to play the character of Kincade. Producer Barbara Broccoli said that her father, pioneering Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli, wanted to work with Finney but that the opportunity never arose.
- #274
The only weapon in the James Bond family collection that was not sold was his father's hunting gun, a double-barrelled shotgun with the initials "AB" on the stock. Bond's late father was named Andrew. Coincidentally, the initials are the same as those of Albert R. Broccoli, who produced every official James Bond film from Dr. No (1962) to GoldenEye (1995) before his death in 1996.
- #275
The film cost 150 million dollars, more than 100 times the 1.1 million dollar budget of Dr. No (1962).
- #276
Javier Bardem said that Dame Judi Dench was a "delight" to work with.
- #277
It was the first one-word Bond film title in seventeen years, the previous one being GoldenEye (1995). It also shares the title of shortest one-word James Bond film with Spectre (2015). It is one of only two two-syllable titles, most having been three syllables in the past (Goldfinger (1964), Moonraker (1979), GoldenEye (1995) and Thunderball (1965) and Octopussy (1983) have four syllables). Dr. No (1962) remains the shortest Bond film title by number of letters, with five, while "Skyfall" has seven letters.
- #278
This is the third James Bond film shot in Asia and features an actress of Asian origin playing one of the main Bond Girls. The first two were You Only Live Twice (1967) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). This film's Bond Girl, Bérénice Marlohe, was born to a Cambodian/Chinese father and a French mother (half white and half Asian). Several Bond films shot in Asia did not feature a Bond Girl from there; these were Die Another Day (2002), Octopussy (1983) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). However, those three films gave women of Asian origin minor Bond Girl roles.
- #279
James Bond used the Walther PPK and Walther PPK/S in this film.
- #280
It is the second James Bond film to feature the gun barrel sequence at the start of the end title sequence. This is Daniel Craig's third distinct gun barrel sequence, making him the first James Bond actor to have more than two different sequences, like Sir Sean Connery and Sir Roger Moore.
- #281
During the early stages of this film's development and pre-production, "Variety" columnist Liz Smith once wrote that this film, then known as "Bond 23", was being shot in New York City using the Primola Restaurant as one of its locations. In the piece published on Wednesday, 10 September 2008, she wrote: "WHO WAS that blond stunner who froze forks in mid-air at the posh Primola restaurant in N.Y.? Oh yes, indeed it was Daniel Craig, 007 himself. Crazy Daniel was accompanied by his producer Barbara Broccoli. Daniel and Barbara talked about the next Bond epic, part of which will be shot in New York for the first time. Primola itself Maybe Daniel wanted to see if the restaurant could handle those shoulders." It turned out that New York City was in fact never considered as a shooting location.
- #282
This is the only film in which Daniel Craig played James Bond that does not feature Jesper Christensen as Mr. White or reference Vesper Lynd or the QUANTUM organisation.
- #283
Ben Whishaw shares his birthday with former James Bond Sir Roger Moore.
- #284
It is the seventh film collaboration between cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins and production designer Dennis Gassner. The pair had previously worked with director Sir Sam Mendes on Jarhead (2005). Their other joint work was on films by Joel and Ethan Coen: Barton Fink (1991), The Ladykillers (2004), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) and O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000).
- #285
It is the first James Bond film since Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) in which someone other than a Bond Girl received second billing, in this case Dame Judi Dench as "M".
- #286
With the 2019 announcement that scenes for No Time to Die (2021) would be shot in Matera, Italy, this became the only Daniel Craig James Bond film with no scenes set or shot in Italy.
- #287
In the scene where Silva comes out of the tube and gets into the police car, you can see a production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins at the Playhouse Theatre in the background. There was no production of it at the time; likewise, there is a reference to the fact that Sam Mendes directed the original London production and that Bond himself is an assassin.
- #288
The word "Sévérine" is a French name of Latin origin and translates into English as "stern or sever". It is the French feminine version of the Latin male name "Severus", a saint's name. Sévérine consists of eight letters, has three syllables and is pronounced "Sey-Vah-RIY-N". Sévérine is a variant of the name "Severina" used in Italian, German, Portuguese, Romanian and the Slavic languages. Other variant forms of the name are Severino, Severinus, Severo, Sevrin and Seweryn.
- #289
Thomas Newman replaced David Arnold as the composer of this film. After Monty Norman, John Barry, Sir George Martin, Marvin Hamlisch, Bill Conti, Michael Kamen, Éric Serra and Arnold, Newman is the ninth composer of a James Bond film.
- #290
Skyfall was the only non-Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to be nominated in both Best Sound Editing (which it won in a tie) and Best Sound Mixing.
- #291
Sir Sam Mendes became the second Oscar winner to direct a Bond film, after John Huston, who co-directed Casino Royale (1967).
- #292
Thomas Newman is the fourth American composer to score a James Bond film, after Marvin Hamlisch on The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Bill Conti on For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Michael Kamen on Licence to Kill (1989).
- #293
Reports in the press in 2012 stated that Jessica Gomes and Nicole Trunfio auditioned for the role of Sévérine.
- #294
Nicholas Woodeson, who plays Doctor Hall (the man who gives James Bond the word association test), also appeared in The Avengers (1998) as Dr. Darling, who tests Ralph Fiennes's character — the British agent John Steed — near the start of the film. In that film John Steed faces the villain Sir August de Wynter, played by Sir Sean Connery.
- #295
The Aston Martin DB5 that stores and drives M to the Skyfall lodge is a clear reminder of the car seen in Goldfinger (1964). Its plate reads BMT 216A, a reference to Goldfinger. The gear stick has the same ejector button as in Goldfinger, and when M sees it open as Bond is about to press the red button she says: "Oh, go on then, eject me. See if I care." Machine guns were later mounted under the lights added by Bond and were used when Silva's men storm the lodge; unlike in Goldfinger, they helped Bond. Viewers might think this DB5 is the one from Casino Royale (2006), but the car seen there is not the same one: the Casino Royale DB5 was left-hand drive, while this one is right-hand drive. The DB5's machine guns and other gadgets recall the car seen in Goldfinger more closely.
- #296
Javier Bardem had been considered for the role of Renard in The World Is Not Enough (1999).
- #297
Adjusted for inflation, this is the third highest-grossing James Bond film in domestic box office receipts, after Thunderball (1965) and Goldfinger (1964).
- #298
In the film's thrilling action scenes set in Scotland, Daniel Craig/James Bond wears an olive green field jacket known as the "Barbour x To Ki To Beacon Heritage Sports Jacket". Designed in a collaboration between the iconic British brand Barbour and Japanese designer Tokihito Yoshida, the jacket was made from weather-resistant 6 oz fabric. It polished Sylkoil cotton and was cut like a blazer or sports jacket. The standard version of this jacket has a detachable zipped hood, which the costume department removed to give Bond a more modern look in the intense action scenes.
- #299
In the scenes set in Shanghai, Daniel Craig/James Bond wears a navy coat by the American designer Billy Reid. Coincidentally, Reid calls this garment the "Bond Peacoat", though the name actually comes from the brand's Bond Street store in New York rather than from the character James Bond. The coat is made in Italy from 100% wool, with leather details and horn buttons. Daniel Craig had in fact bought this coat for his own personal use at the Billy Reid store in Nashville before filming on Skyfall began, and was apparently such a fan that he asked costume designer Jany Temime to order several additional Billy Reid coats for him to wear on screen. Craig reportedly wore a Medium for the "hero" shots but a Large for the action scenes, to give him extra room to move and greater comfort.
- #300
Dame Judi Dench and Ben Whishaw co-starred in 2013 in the stage play "Peter and Alice", written by Skyfall (2012) screenwriter John Logan.
- #301
With this film and Spectre (2015), Ralph Fiennes became the seventh major actor or actress to appear in both the "James Bond" and "The Avengers" universes — the latter being the British spy series, not the comic-book superheroes. Three actors from the original series The Avengers (1961) appeared in Bond films: Honor Blackman played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964); Patrick Macnee played Sir Godfrey Tibbett in A View to a Kill (1985); and Dame Diana Rigg played Tracy Di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). The second film also featured Joanna Lumley, who had appeared in The New Avengers (1976), in which Macnee also starred. Nadim Sawalha appeared in The Avengers (1998) and in two Bond films: The Living Daylights (1987) and The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Fiennes appeared alongside former James Bond Sir Sean Connery, who played the villain Sir August de Wynter in The Avengers (1998). Of these seven actors and actresses, Fiennes and Macnee each played John Steed of The Avengers, in the feature film and the television series respectively; the latter also voiced the character Invisible Jones in The Avengers (1998). In this film, John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) and Emma Peel (Uma Thurman) cross a frozen river by "walking" on the surface inside inflatable plastic bubbles, similar to James Bond boarding Ernst Stavro Blofeld's (Charles Gray's) oil platform in Diamonds Are Forever (1971).
- #302
For Grimsby (2016): Penélope Cruz played Rhonda George, the chief villain of the spy film. Cruz's husband, Javier Bardem, played the chief villain in this film. The villain's plan in Grimsby (2016) is also similar to that of Drax (Michael Lonsdale) in Moonraker (1979).
- #303
Miss Eve Moneypenny says there is more to Gareth Mallory "than meets the eye". This is the slogan of the "Transformers" series, about a group of shape-shifting robots. Many of the Transformers share the name "Skyfall".
- #304
The roof of Istanbul's Grand Bazaar had also been used for a foot chase in The International (2009).
- #305
During Silva's escape sequence, every car number plate clearly visible behind Bond is a palindrome: 96069, 96669 and 96269. The others, which are not clear, do not appear to be palindromes.
- #306
Ralph Fiennes was considered to play James Bond in GoldenEye (1995).
- #307
Skyfall was the first James Bond film to be nominated for a Golden Globe Award since Die Another Day (2002). It was also the first James Bond film to win a Golden Globe Award since Dr. No (1962).
- #308
Skyfall was the first James Bond film to win a Grammy Award.
- #309
Record producer Paul Epworth recalled writing the title song with Adele: "I thought, 'This could be the song.' I called her and said, 'It might be too dark.' And she said she loved it. Within 10 minutes she laid down most of the vocals [in the recording booth]. By the time she got there, the lyrics were ready in her head. It was ridiculous. It was quick, but it was really extraordinary." He later clarified, "Adele didn't record the final 'Skyfall' vocal in 10 minutes. We cut the first draft of the verse and the chorus. Getting the track to its final form took a while."
- #310
The steppe and the frozen lake were built on a soundstage. The ice was made of glass covered with wax paper. The actors were dropped through a trapdoor into a tank below to fall into the water.
- #311
Daniel Craig performed most of the underwater sequences himself.
- #312
When Daniel Craig was offered the role of James Bond for Casino Royale (2006), he called Sir Sam Mendes, with whom he had previously worked on Road to Perdition (2002), to ask for advice. Mendes warned Craig not to take it, fearing he would be typecast. Mendes eventually directed two of Craig's Bond films: Skyfall and Spectre (2015).
- #313
Daniel Craig said that "Bond opens a few doors," allowing the production, because of the series' reputation, to close off busy London areas such as Whitehall and the London Underground for filming, access that would be denied to most films.
- #314
Daniel Craig is one year older than Javier Bardem, making Skyfall the first James Bond film in a decade in which the actor playing Bond was older than the actor playing the villain. The previous such film was Die Another Day (2002), in which Pierce Brosnan was 16 years older than villain Toby Stephens.
- #315
With this film, the James Bond series' global box office gross surpassed 6 billion dollars. It became the second film series to reach that milestone, after Harry Potter.
- #316
The James Bond video game 007 Legends (2012) had an extensive storyline inspired by six stories from six different James Bond films. Each story represented one of the six actors who had played Bond in the official film series up to that point: Goldfinger (1964) - Sir Sean Connery; On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) - George Lazenby; Moonraker (1979) - Sir Roger Moore; Licence to Kill (1989) - Timothy Dalton; Die Another Day (2002) - Pierce Brosnan; and Skyfall (2012) - Daniel Craig. However, Bond's likeness across all the missions was Craig's.
- #317
Dame Judi Dench, Naomie Harris, Rory Kinnear and Orion Lee reprised their respective roles in the tie-in video game 007 Legends (2012). Daniel Craig also provided his likeness as James Bond, but the character was voiced by Timothy Watson.
- #318
Ralph Fiennes's involvement continues the long tradition of actors who moved from 'The Avengers' to the Bond series. Honor Blackman did so in 'Goldfinger', Diana Rigg and Joanna Lumley did so in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', and Patrick Macnee appeared in 'A View to a Kill' (John Cleese, who played the recurring character R, also appeared in an episode). In the 1998 'Avengers' film, Fiennes took on the role of John Steed alongside former Bond Sean Connery.
- #319
It was the first Sony film to gross 1 billion dollars worldwide.
- #320
Naomie Harris (Miss Eve Moneypenny) became the sixth major actor or actress to appear in films based on the works of both celebrated spy novelists John le Carré and Ian Fleming. Harris's role as Gail Perkins in Our Kind of Traitor (2016) followed her appearances in the Bond films Skyfall and Spectre (2015). Pierce Brosnan and Sir Sean Connery had previously played James Bond on screen and appeared in film adaptations of le Carré, in The Tailor of Panama (2001) and The Russia House (1990) respectively; the latter had a title evoking Fleming's From Russia with Love (1963), in which Connery played Bond. Connery's unofficial Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983), one of his 007 Bond films, also co-starred Klaus Maria Brandauer, who likewise appeared in The Russia House (1990). Connery and Brandauer thus both appeared in the same two Bond and le Carré spy films. Harris and Brosnan also appeared together in After the Sunset (2004). Bernard Lee, the first actor to play M in the Bond films, was the first actor to appear in both a Bond and a le Carré adaptation; Lee took the role of Patmore in le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), the first filmed adaptation of a le Carré novel. Ralph Fiennes, who played Justin Quayle in le Carré's The Constant Gardener (2005), went on to play M (Gareth Mallory) in Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2020), just as Harris played Miss Eve Moneypenny in those same three films. James Bond actor Daniel Craig's wife Rachel Weisz had previously played Tessa Quayle in The Constant Gardener (2005), winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for that film, in which Weisz and Fiennes played husband and wife. Around thirty cast and crew members worked on both Spectre (2015) and John le Carré's Our Kind of Traitor (2016).
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