Penguin Books U.S. has informed The Young Bond Dossier that their tie-in edition of Casino Royale, due for release Oct. 31, will not feature poster art for the film on its cover.Instead, the familiar Richie Fahey retro cover art (first released in 2002 and soon to be released on new UK reprints) will be used with the addition of the cover blurb: "Now A Major Motion Picture."
A representative for the company explained,"We are not doing an official tie-in edition because the final poster art is not coming in time for us to have the book ready for movie release. We will use the jacket with the woman and the playing cards behind her."
It's still possible that Penguin UK will release a Casino Royale tie-in edition with movie poster art, although no listing for a UK tie-in edition currently exists on Amazon.co.uk.
This is disappointing, but it isn't a first. The U.S. tie-in edition for You Only Live Twice used only the familiar Signet paperback with the addition of a pink sticker on the cover reading, "GIRLS, THRILLS, CHILLS and SEX GALORE in a smash new movie starring SEAN CONNERY." (These editions are now highly collectible.)
Likewise, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy, and A View To A Kill never received full movie poster cover tie-in editions in the U.S. In the case of Never Say Never Again and The Living Daylights, no tie-in editions of any kind were ever released in the U.S. (at least not that I'm aware).
Ironically, the unofficial 1967 Casino Royale did get an official movie tie-in edition, despite the fact that the Charles K. Feldman comedy hardly resembled the original Ian Fleming novel.
