"In 1997, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery had satirized the movies from head to foot, making it harder to play them for laughs. On the morning of 9/11, Broccoli and Wilson were in London, in a script meeting for Die Another Day. It was too late to rewrite the movie, but they sensed that it would be the last of its kind. “We felt the world has changed and the nature of these films has to change,” Broccoli told me. Two years earlier, after a long legal battle, Eon and MGM Studios had obtained the rights to Casino Royale, Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel, which was published in 1953. After September 11, the story offered a chance to refresh the franchise, grounding it more strongly in both the original, darker tones of the novels and the new, worrying state of the world. “It wasn’t just recasting the role,” Broccoli said. “It was a new century and a new era. It felt like we had to redefine.”"