BOND 23 Press Conference 11.45am: Five Things We Expect To Be Announced...

EON Productions and Sony Pictures have booked a press conference in central London for 11.45am GMT today (Thursday 3rd November, 2011) to officially announce production has started on the 23rd James Bond movie. If you have Sky TV in the UK, along with an Apple iPad, you can actually watch the live stream so you can witness everything as it happens... though you will need to download the Sky News app via iTunes and sign-in with your unique Sky ID. The press conference will also be available through Sky Active. Directed by Sam Mendes and the third movie to star Daniel Craig in the signature 007 role, Bond 23 has been in serious development for the best part of the last two years but hit considerable stoppages when MGM went bust and the financing collapsed. Craig went on to star in other projects and even set himself up for potential franchises with Cowboys & Aliens (though a sequel on that one won't happen) and The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (which probably will) and it looked like he resigned himself to only matching the number of films Timothy Dalton could with the series. But thankfully James Bond never dies, he's impossible to kill off. If he has seen off Blofeld he can handle an economic crisis and so we arrive today to the press conference where a new film will officially be announced as Bond enters his 6th different decade on film. Here's five reveals we are expecting today;

1) Bond 23 Will Be Titled SKYFALLL

We were one of the first to spot the news last month that Sony had registered several dozen domain url's referring to the words 'Skyfall' and 'James Bond movie/film' which seemed to pretty obviously point to that as the official title of the new film. If true, this would make it the first James Bond movie to have a unique, non-Ian Fleming title in a decade... though it does certainly have a Fleming ring to it. Some critics say it belongs more to the Mission Impossible franchise or for a Bond video game but it's kind of grown on us and we fully expect it to announced today. We tried to get official word from Sony but they just refused to comment.... so watch this space on that one.

2) The Cast -

Including Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Wishaw & Albert Finney along with the returning Daniel Craig / Judi Dench. Most potential castings regarding the next James Bond movie have come from The Daily Mail but each one has been backed up with quotes from the talent themselves confirming talks have taken place. At this stage it seems impossible to think that anyone else but Javier Bardem will be playing the villain (surely they couldn't have kept it quiet this long) or that Ralph Fiennes is the overarching Blofeld type character or that Naomie Harris is the new Moneypenny or that Bérénice Marlohe is the new Bond girl. As far as we are aware, the cast for the new movie looks like this... Daniel Craig leads as 007 (the 3rd of 4 contracted outings as Bond) Judi Dench is back as M, Rory Kinnear returns as her assistant. Albert Finney is their boss! Javier Bardem is the villain. French beauty Bérénice Marlohe is the Bond girl. Ralph Fiennes is looking likely as the head of Q.U.A.N.T.U.M Naomie Harris brings Moneypenny back to the big screen Then there€™s supporting roles for Helen McCroy and Ben Wishaw, although Jeffrey Wright has said he hasn€™t yet had the phone call to return as Felix Leiter.

3) That BOND 23 Will Return 007 To His "Gritty Ian Fleming Routes"

This has been the token announcement regarding every Bond movie since the latter Pierce Brosnan films completely went off in a bonkers direction. Desperate not to be likened to The World Is Not Enough or Die Another Day, Bond producers called Casino Royale (2006) 'a return to the Sean Connery days' and that it would be 'faithful' to Ian Fleming's writings and then we heard the same thing with Quantum of Solace (2008), though for many critics the end result didn't work. You can expect it to be heard again today. And this is ALWAYS said after a Bond film hasn't quite caught on with audiences so doubly so.

4) The Plot

Although we won't know the exact plot of the new movie, we can expect to hear some specific key words. We heard during the Quantum of Solace build-up that it would be a direct sequel to the events of Casino Royale and the word 'revenge' was said a lot in regards to Bond's motivations. You can expect at least some foreshadowing today for the new film. Don't expect anything too Earth shattering but hints to where Bond 23 will be taking us is definitely on the cards. As we know some of Bond 23's shooting will take place in Scotland and what appears to be Bond's ancestral home, you can almost guarantee that at some point we will hear the words 'returning or exploring Bond's heritage'.

5) The Technical Players

Roger Deakins, probably the greatest cinematographer on the planet, hasn't yet been confirmed by EON but Deakins himself has certainly been vocal about his hiring for the film. We expect to hear his name officially confirmed today and for Mendes, who likes to work with the best cinematographers in the business (see American Beauty & Road To Perdition for his work with Conrad Hall... amazing), this was probably one of the first hirings he made. The Bond website MI6 has said previously that Tariq Anwar, editor of Mendes€™ American Beauty and Revolutionary Road, will also be working on the production which makes sense. David Arnold has been confirmed before as producing the soundtrack but it's always good to get a full confirmation from the press conference. One thing we won't expect to hear today is....

Who Is Doing The Theme Song

It's way, way, way, way too early for this. We won't hear who is recording the theme song until well into 2012. Those rumours of Adele providing the theme are likely to just be that. She may very well be in the Bond producers mind and see herself may have had hints but I don't think anyone at EON or Sony are too concerned at this point about the title track. Check back at 11.45am for all our reaction to the Bond 23 press conference.