‘Casino Royale’ hid a cool James Bond Easter Egg in plain sight

There is no doubt that Casino Royale, released back in 2006, reinvigorated the James Bond franchise. This was Daniel Craig’s debut as the elite spy, which came with a reboot of the concept, jettisoned a lot of the campy elements, and told a much more grounded story. It was an enormous critical and box office hit, grossing $615 million on a $150 million budget and is now regularly ranked among the finest entries in the franchise.

Now the official James Bond Instagram account has posted an Easter Egg from the movie contained within Bond’s passport. Check it out:

The account notes that Bond’s birthday is the same day as the publication of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royal novel in 1953, which is a fun nod to the long history of the story. However, comments on the image are somewhat more baffled by Bond’s place of birth being Berlin.

As per the franchise, Bond is an orphan raised in Scotland, with Skyfall taking us to his isolated country home. However, his birthplace being in Germany (which would have been West Germany at that time) actually fits in neatly with the Craig Bond’s official biography.

This states that Bond’s father Andrew was an accounts manager at a British defense company’s Berlin office, with his mother Monique being from Switzerland. It seems that the Bond family was originally based in Europe, with them living in Berlin and Bond’s earliest education taking place in the country.

This also means there’s a dangling plot thread that the movies never capitalized on. If Bond’s father was active in West Germany at a defense company, it seems like a no-brainer he’d have been wrapped up in espionage related to the Cold War. This could have made for a fun link to Bond’s long-lost past, especially with Skyfall exploring his childhood home.

With Craig’s Bond saga now at an end, the stage is set for a new version of 007, so perhaps we could see an updated backstory in which Bond’s father’s exploits in 1980s Berlin play a role. Here’s hoping we will find who’ll next get the coveted license to kill soon.