STATUS

On 06.01.10, it was claimed that filming could take place as early as June 2010, for a release next year and that Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) was in negotiations to direct but as of right now – we’ve had no official confirmation on this, and later reports said he would simply be “consulting”.

However, we have had official confirmation that the movie is not on hold as previously reported, and that Bond 23 will go ahead as planned despite the sale of MGM.

The proposed hiring of Mendes is a distinct change of pace for EON Productions who in the past have denied the likes of A* star directors Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino from getting their hands on a Bond movie, in favour of going for safer, studio friendly helmers.

Nikki Finke has heard that Craig, who it’s fairly obvious didn’t like Marc Forster’s direction on Quantum of Solace – suggested Mendes to the producers after working with him on Road to Perdition, and was fairly aggressive in his hiring.

Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon, The Queen) has joined the current James Bond writing team of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade who have brought us the last four movies in the series, going all the way back to The World is Not Enough in 1999.

This will be the 23rd James Bond movie in the EON Productions official series and the 25th James Bond film overall.

CAST

Daniel Craig will return as James Bond for the third time as part of a four movie deal.

Judi Dench returns as M.

Jeffrey Wright is expected to return as Felix Leiter.

Olga Kurylenko who played Camille Montes, the lead Bond girl from Quantum of Solace could also return as she is still alive and although her story arc seemed complete, the new series is all about continuity, so you can’t rule out a return.

Jesper Christensen is unlikely to return as Mr. White, after calling Casino Royale & Quantum of Solace “really shit” at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival and we would expect his QOS deleted death scene, to make it on a future special edition DVD release, meaning a sad – cutting room floor ending for a pretty cool character.

Daniel Craig, speaking in Dec. 08 clearly wants a return of two classic Bond characters who have so far been missing from the new franchise…

“Let’s try and find where Moneypenny came from and where Q comes from. Let’s do all that and have some fun with it.”

STORY

Unlike Quantum of Solace’s relation to Casino Royale - the next James Bond movie is not expected to be a direct continuation of events from the last movie. Producer Barbara Broccoli is quoted as saying the series “will go on to other different stories from now on.”

Another indicator of this is that Marc Foster shot a scene that was deleted from the final prints of Quantum of Solace where Bond arrived at the home of Guy Haines, the corrupt advisor to the British PM and Mr. White’s superior in the Quantum organisation, and killed Mr. White in front of Haines and began to question him about who he worked for. If the scene was kept in the movie, it would have been difficult not to follow up with this for Bond 23.

Of course if they so desire, they could use the scene at the beginning of the next movie.

The Quantum organisation could return as the main villain for Bond 23, or it may be left in the shadows for a future movie.

TITLE

There remains only four of Bond creator Ian Fleming’s 007 titles that have yet to find their way to the big screen. All sound extremely uncommercial and difficult to market but not entirely uninteresting. We of course said the same thing when Quantum of Solace was part of the bunch last time around in the build-up to Bond 22.

They are;

“The Property of a Lady”, “The Hildebrand Rarity”, “Risico” and “007 in New York” (aka “Agent 007 in New York“).

Out of all of them, Risico probably sounds the most likely to be used and is certainly the most versatile of the lot, if indeed it comes to pass that they are to continue this trend. Fanmade artwork of various Fleming titles have already made the rounds…