New James Bond Movie Gets a Start Date — and All the Latest Rumors and Reports
Daniel Craig in ‘Skyfall’
James Bond’s 24th big-screen adventure is about to get off the ground. Variety reports that the next Bond movie will begin shooting on Dec. 6, beginning with a table read at Pinewood Studios in London. The returning cast includes Daniel Craig, who has been playing 007 for eight years now; Ralph Fiennes, who has taken over the role of M from Judi Dench; Naomie Harris as field agent-turned-secretary Eve Moneypenny; Rory Kinnear as MI6 chief of staff Bill Tanner; and Ben Wishaw as Q, the agency’s weapon- and gadget-guru. Sam Mendes, who helmed the previous Bond film, 2012’s Skyfall, will make a welcome return to the director’s chair.
Naomie Harris as Moneypenny in ‘Skyfall’
These days, it’s rare for a franchise as lucrative as the Bond movies to spend a long time in hiatus. But there’s a good reason for the two-year gap between Skyfall and the new film: the producers decided that Mendes, who initially turned down the job because of theater and TV commitments, was worth the wait. The film is now reportedly on track for its projected release date of November 6, 2015.
All other details of Bond 24 are being kept under wraps, but dedicated Bond news website MI6 has been rounding up stray bits of gossip, casting, and production reports. According to the site’s sources, casting has begun for a tall, athletic, “classic physically imposing henchman” in the vein of ‘70s villain Jaws (played by the late Richard Kiel). Earlier this year, Chiwetel Ejiofor was the rumored top choice to play the film’s villain — perhaps the employer of that physically imposing henchman? — but the British actor has refused to comment on the report. As for the inevitable “Bond girls,” the producers have reportedly screen tested multiple Scandinavian actresses, including Norwegian star Synnove Macody Lund and Swedish dancer Isabel Edvardsson. MI6 reports that the production team has also scouted locations in Rome, the Austrian Alps, Morocco, and possibly India. (James Bond has always been quite the world traveler, with Skyfall taking him from Shanghai to Scotland.)
With this new Bond film, studios MGM, Sony, and Eon are no doubt hoping to re-create the runaway success of Skyfall, the highest-grossing James Bond movie ever. Craig, for one, is hoping that the secret agent’s journey is a little less dark this time around — but only a little. “Hopefully we’ll reclaim some of the old irony, and make sure it doesn’t become pastiche,” Craig told Vulture last year. “I can’t do shtick, I’m not very good at it.”
Watch the trailer for Skyfall:
