Kate Winslet announced it already
some weeks ago but I suppose it's nice to get official confirmation from MGM that they've sorted their shit out and production on the
23rd James Bond film will begin late this year, for a planned worldwide release on November 9th, 2012. Sadly there was no flashy press conference, no title/plot/cast announcement, no promise that it's going to be "Bond like we've never seen him before" etc as we've had in the past but it's still great to know it's coming because for a while there, it really didn't look like it was going to happen.
Daniel Craig's back, the ridiculously amazing
Sam Mendes (Road to Perdition, American Beauty) will direct which is beyond cool, and possibly the greatest news is that they have dropped screenwriter
Peter Morgan, who wasn't a great fit for this anyway.
John Logan (Sweeney Todd, The Aviator) has replaced him but sadly
Neal Purvis and
Robert Wade, a duo who go back to the Pierce Brosnan days and
The World Is Not Enough are still getting paychecks as head writers. It's funny, they always make sure to change the directors but never the actors, eh? Once again it's being reported that producer
Barbara Broccoli has held many meetings over casting, a few with theatre veteran
Simon Russell Beale who is being eyed for a role. Beale is a good friend of Mendes, a frequent theatre collaborator (four productions, including King Lear in 2012) and Mendes/Broccoli have visited him in his current play
Deathtrap twice.
Clearly the role is going to be a substantial one if they are looking at him so closely and so early, so one might think he could be the new films villain perhaps even the head of Quantum, this new series version of SPECTRE which has troubled Bond in the previous two films. Anyway, for now, it's just great know that the James Bond adventures are set to continue. Here's hoping we see Miss. Moneypenny and Q in this one...