Bond 23 Conference to be held on 3rd November

The official press conference for the launch of Bond 23 will be held on Thursday the 3rd November.

All will be revealed, including: will it be called Skyfall?; who is the Bond girl/girls; what will Daniel Craig look like,

UPDATE:



It is called Skyfall (am I alone in thinking that a strange name?). Daniel Craig looked rather disheveled with a grey beard and skinhead haircut which means he is probably filming some specific scenes and is not planning to push the Bond reboot to even more bizarre territory by looking like that for the whole movie,

The cast also includes Bérénice Marlohe (in the red above) and Naomie Harris (other girl in pic) along with Javier Bardem, Albert Finney and Ralph Fiennes.

Ben Wishaw new Q?

The UK's Daily Mail is reporting that 31 year old Ben Wishaw will play Q in Skyfall. It is a radical interpretation of the Q character and it will be interesting to see if Eon are intending to show the orgins of the Q character continuing their odd Craig-as-young-Bond arc.

Not much news

Not much news on the Bond 23 front at the moment. Daniel Craig is back as is Judi Dench. It is being produced by Eon and will be marketed as a James Bond film. And there will be a bit set in India. Apparently!

I nearly forgot: Naomie Harris is rumoured to be the first black Moneypenny.

Ralph Fiennes

Not much news to report on Bond 23. Presumably work is underway behind the scenes, Ralph Fiennes is rumoured to be playing the villian, and Barbara Broccoli and Daniel Craig have been spotted (seperately) frequenting various expensive restaurants throughout the world.

Bond 23 to use South Africa as location?

According to the DanielCraigisnotBond forum , "Former England international cricketer Darren Gough spilled the beans as he sat next to (Bond 23 producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson) during a first class Virgin flight to Johannesburg earlier today. Gough said that they were traveling to scout locations for the film. Whether their location work is based just in South Africa is unclear."

South Africa would be a good choice for Eon due to the country's financial incentives.

Bond 23 in 2012

Bond producer Barbara Broccoli announced recently that the next Bond movie would be released in 2012 - four years after Quantum of Solace - and that Daniel Craig would resume his role as Bond.

Since that announcement there has been a lack of news, apart from the usual made up stories in the press (Sean Connery to play M,Kate Middleton to be Miss Moneypenny.......). The Hobbit and Superman are released next year, the same time as the scheduled release of Bond 23, but they are much more advanced in the production.

Eon will probably rush to put a film together for next year and we will have another mess like Quantum of Solace. Now is the time to delay Bond 23 until 2013 and have a rethink and come back with a new actor playing James Bond. Unfortunately Barbara Broccoli would rather mothball the Bond series than make a Bond film without Craig.

Anthony Hopkins to Play 'Bond 23' Villain?

Our old friends at the British tabloid The Sun floated supposed insider information that Anthony Hopkins, on time Tomorrow Never Dies (Bond 18) villain, was in talks to take on Craig in Bond 23, or perhaps another more prestigious role since Hopkins was allegedly about to sign on for a recurring  role. Too good to be true? You bet.

"The only stumbling block seems to be the number of films he is signing up for. There is a chance the character they want him to play could become a regular feature, like Blofeld back in the day."

 None of this had any basis in fact nor the real world as it turns out. In a press function for his movie The Rite Sir Anthony was asked about his possible involvement. His response was one of absolute shock.

You must ask my agent because I know nothing about it.

Luckly his agent was at hand to fully put the mystery to rest with his quick response of:

First I’ve heard of it too!

  Not that Sir Anthony had been keeping up with the going-ons of the Bond series drama. According to reports he wanted to know if Pierce Brosnan was still making 007 movies. Who can blame him?

So where does that leave us on Bond 23 casting? No Hopkins, that was a red herring. No Kevin Spacey turns out this rumor was also spurious. Javier Bardem did indeed confirm he was approached about playing the villains role however wanted to see a script first and since then he may have taken up a demanding role in The Dark Tower trilogy making him unavailable for Bond 23. Final score Danny Craig and Dame Judi Dench are the only firm casting to date. Let just hope they don't decide to play dress-up again!