Development of the film was suspended throughout 2010 after Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which caused screenwriter Peter Morgan to leave the project.

Skyfall received positive reviews, with praise for Mendes's direction, cast performances, action sequences, cinematography, and musical score.

Three months later, due to a public inquiry into M's handling of the stolen hard drive, she is pressured to retire by Gareth Mallory, the chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament and a former SAS officer.

Bond and Q conclude that Silva wanted to be captured as part of a plan to kill M, whom he hates for disavowing and betraying him to the Chinese government during the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, leaving him to be tortured and disfigured by a suicide attempt by cyanide pill.

Instructing Q and Bill Tanner to leave an electronic trail for Silva to follow, Bond uses his Aston Martin DB5 to take M to Skyfall, his childhood home in the Scottish Highlands.

Silva arrives by helicopter with more men and heavy weapons, so Bond sends M and Kincade through a priest hole to hide in a nearby chapel, and rigs propane tanks to explode.

[16] On 3 October 2011, fifteen domain names including jamesbond-skyfall.com and skyfallthefilm.com were reported to have been registered on behalf of MGM and Sony Pictures by Internet brand-protection service MarkMonitor.

He wanted to create "something [the audience] may consider to have been absent from the Bond movies for a long time",[28] and felt that Bardem was one of the few actors able to become "colourless" and exist as more than just a function of the plot.

[30] Bardem dyed his hair blond for the role, after brainstorming ideas for a distinct visual look with Mendes,[31] which led some commentators to suggest a resemblance to Julian Assange.

[50] Mendes first signed on to direct the project shortly after Quantum of Solace was released, and remained as a consultant during the uncertainty surrounding MGM's financial situation.

[51] Media speculation was that Mendes had commissioned rewrites of the script to "[remove] action scenes in favour of 'characterful performances'" with the hope of securing an Academy Award.

"[58] Morgan cowrote the treatment Once Upon a Spy with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, which had M being blackmailed by a Russian oligarch, who would be a former KGB agent she had an affair with while stationed in West Berlin during the Cold War.

[59] Purvis and Wade then wrote a new script drawing from You Only Live Twice (1964) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1965), in which Bond is presumed dead after an accident and travels back to London to an uncertain MI6.

The original screenplay would have more closely followed the literary series' story arc with Bond becoming an amnesiac and unknowingly impregnating his lover Lily in Turkey, who would have tracked him down to London after he returned to MI6.

[66] With the film moving into pre-production in August, reports emerged that shooting would take place in India,[67] with scenes to be shot in the Sarojini Nagar district of New Delhi[68] and on railway lines between Goa and Ahmedabad.

[70] Similar problems in obtaining filming permits were encountered by production crews for The Dark Knight Rises and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol.

[83] St Bartholomew's Hospital[79] was used for the scene in which Bond enters MI6's underground headquarters, while the Old Vic Tunnels underneath Waterloo Station served as the MI6 training grounds.

[92] Some Turkish teenagers infiltrated a closed set in railway sidings in Adana, during film rehearsals of the fight on top of a train, before they were caught by security.

Nordanstad, who produced a short 2002 documentary on the island entitled Hashima, recalled Craig taking extensive notes during the meeting, but was unaware of his interest in it until Skyfall was released.

[121] In the UK the film grossed £20.1 million on its opening weekend, making it the second-highest Friday-to-Sunday debut ever behind Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Sam Mendes brings Bond surging back with a smart, sexy, riveting action thriller that qualifies as one of the best 007 films to date.

[32] Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter thought that Skyfall was "dramatically gripping while still brandishing a droll undercurrent of humor",[2] going on to say that it was a film that had "some weight and complexity to it".

[2] Variety's Peter DeBruge suggested that the film's greatest strength lay in its willingness to put as much focus on characterisation as it did action set-pieces, allowing the two to co-exist rather than compete for the audience's attention,[140] while Manohla Dargis, reviewing for The New York Times, considered Skyfall to be "a superior follow-up to Casino Royale"[141] which is "opulent rather than outlandish and insistently, progressively low-key".

[141] Kim Newman, reviewing the film for Empire, concluded, "Skyfall is pretty much all you could want from a 21st Century Bond: cool but not camp, respectful of tradition but up to the moment, serious in its thrills and relatively complex in its characters but with the sense of fun that hasn't always been evident lately".

[142] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, describing it as "a full-blooded, joyous, intelligent celebration of a beloved cultural icon".

[148] McCartney thought Javier Bardem played Silva "with worrisome élan",[148] while Henry K Miller considered his character "the most authentically Bondian Bond villain in decades".

[149] A number of critics noted the strength of the supporting cast; Kim Newman found the "warmth and gravitas" of Finney's performance noteworthy,[142] while other reviewers, including Edward Porter, Daniel Krupa and The Playlist's Oliver Lyttelton, singled out Ralph Fiennes as Mallory and Ben Whishaw as Q.

[150] Ann Hornaday, writing for The Washington Post, thought Sam Mendes had reinvigorated the series, with Skyfall being "sleek, crisp, classy ... exhibiting just the right proportion of respect for legacy and embrace of novelty".

[142] The work of cinematographer Roger Deakins also received praise: Newman commented that he "delivers the most impressive visuals this series has had since the 1960s",[142] and Miller described the film as "dazzlingly photographed".

[152][153] Xan Brooks of The Guardian, in an otherwise positive review, criticised the "touchy-feely indulgence" of "the bold decision to open Bond up – to probe at the character's back-story and raise a toast to his relationship with M".