Bond 25 Could Be Called Shatterhand And Star A New Blind Villain
007: Never Dream of Dying...
Hot on the tail of news that French filmmaker Yann Demange heads a short-list also including Denis Villeneuve to direct the next chapter in the James Bond franchise - which will reportedly see Daniel Craig return, no matter what he said before Spectre came out - we have a pretty major rumour about the future of 007.
Thanks to a report by The Mirror, the film's title may have been revealed, as well as the Bond story it will be based on. They say the film will be called Shatterhand and will be based on parts of 1999 007 novel Never Dream of Dying by Raymond Benson.
That would suggest that Bond will face off against villainous organisation The Union, with the help of a stand in for Rene Mathis (who appears in the book but is dead in the movie universe after Quantum Of Solace) and new Bond girl Tylyn Migonne (an actress and seductress linked to the big villain) and the mysterious head of the organisation, a blind supervillain financing global terrorism.
There's nothing wrong with the story they're basing it on, if this is true, but that title is awful. There's no need to continually use single word titles beginning with S, and there's an unfortunate phonetic issue with at least the first half of the title that any studio should try and avoid at all costs. If only to stop the inevitably HILARIOUS critical reviews that immediately transform it to "Sh*ttyhand" if it's even remotely unsuccessful.
At this stage, both Christoph Waltz and Dave Bautista are both expected to return, so we can probably expect to see the Spectre story combine with Benson's source material (though hopefully they'll stop short of The Union being revealed to actually be another arm of Spectre). It's also inevitable that the supporting cast of Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Rory Kinnear and Ben Whishaw will return too.
The Mirror report also suggests that the studio are scouting locations in Croatia, France, and Japan (the book includes a sub-plot about Japanese terrorist, Goro Yoshida). They also note that the script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade takes elements from 1960s Bond classics like You Only Live Twice and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. That sounds like a pretty strong foundation.