Bond 23: Rumour Control

Since the 23rd James Bond film was announced in January, the 007 rumour mill has gone into overdrive, or whatever it is rumour mills do when they're milling more rumours than usual. Most of them concern the casting of the villain (or villains), and while some may well come to pass, others I can only hope are little more than the brainfarts of a bored journalist playing make believe.

I tried to contact EON Productions to confirm the veracity or otherwise of these rumours but it's impossible to find any contact details for them on the internet, so basically I've made it up. If Barbara Broccoli is reading, can you email me your phone number please Babs? Cheers love.

So without further ado, let's play "Truth Or Rumour?", or "Trumour?" as I'll call it for space-saving reasons. Not that I've actually saved any space because I've had to explain the contraction. Balls.

Javier Bardem will play a bad guy

Deadline.com reported at the end of January that manly Spanish man Javier Bardem had been offered a part in the film as the latest diabolical mastermind to fail to kill Bond. Barders himself told the LA Times that he was considering the role but hadn't yet read the script. Over a month later we still don't know any more. That script must be incredibly long.

Trumour? Well it's obviously true that he's been offered the part, but that's all we know for sure. I hope he takes it because I've written an entire post about how good he'll be.

Ralph Fiennes will play a bad guy

"Ralph Fiennes to be shaken, not stirred?" squawked The Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye unoriginally and nonsensically last month in one of those tedious "I can exclusively reveal" stories that usually means nobody else would touch it with a shitty stick. Bazzer claims his source - "a film executive in Los Angeles connected to the production", which is about as vague as it gets - told him (exclusively, obv) that "discussions" have taken place between Fiennes' people and EON.

Trumour? Unlikely if you ask me, which you do by virtue of reading this far. Nobody else has corroborated this, Fiennes hasn't said anything about it and anyway, hasn't he had enough of being the bad guy in a multi-squillion-dollar franchise? If it turns out to be true, the first person to use the word "Vold-finger" gets a laser twixt their Jacobs.

Rachel Weisz will play a bad guy, oh and

the film will be called Red Sky At Night

A hilarious article in The Sun "revealed" on January 20th (nearly a year after it originated at cinemablend.com) that "producers are desperate to sign [Weisz] to play the spy's arch enemy [...] An insider said: 'Casting Rachel was going to be a surprise twist as everyone would assume she'd be a Bond girl when really she would play a villain. But the fly in the ointment is that [she and Daniel Craig] are now dating.'" I might be tempted to argue that the real fly in the ointment is that you just told a tabloid journalist the twist, you galloping buffoon.

The Sun also reported that "the film is tipped to be called Red Sky At Night". A little digging revealed that this hot tip was found on a Bond fansite forum in a post by someone claiming to be a friend of an unnamed art director who'd seen the script. Tenuous much?

Trumour? The Weisz story, soon to celebrate its first birthday, still hasn't been confirmed: make of that what you will. I make of it that The Sun needed to fulfil their Hollywood Totty Tittle Tattle quota for the day. As for the title, a friend of mine whose dog's vet's brother's lover's gynaecologist once had his hand up Dame Judi's Dench told me it would definitely be called Blood And Thunder. We shall see.

Roger Deakins will be Director of Photography

In an interview with collider.com, Deakins revealed that he'll "probably do a film with Sam Mendes next". When asked if that would be Bond 23, he replied "It might, yeah". DON'T TEASE US DEAKINS!

Trumour? That "maybe" comes straight from the horse's speech-hole, so don't underestimate its truthery. Bond directors tend to take on a DoP they know and trust, and Mendes and Deakins previously worked on Revolutionary Road and Jarhead, so they've got form. I'm praying to Cubby Broccoli for this to be true.

Anthony Hopkins will play a bad guy

Remember Batman & Robin, with its forty-six villains? The success of that film leads me to suspect that not everybody rumoured to play a bad guy in Bond 23 will end up doing so. That, and the fact that this one also comes from The Sun, which says that the former proud Welshman and massive ham is "close to signing a deal". This is, of course, according to a suitably vague and probably non-existent "source".

Trumour? About as likely as Sean Connery playing the Bond girl. At least I hope so. Either eventuality would be horrific.

Daniel Craig will wear a dress

Don't be ridiculous. The day Daniel Craig appears as Bond in drag is the day they devote an entire 24 hours to all the ladies of the world.

What?



Oh.