Ah, Mr Bond, we’ve been waiting for you – and at last 007 is back, several years after his last screen adventure.
Producers announced on Thursday that filming has begun on Skyfall, the delayed 23rd film in the series and Daniel Craig’s third outing as the suave British superspy.
Craig, who has brought a hard edge to his portrayal, told reporters that the movie, directed by Sam Mendes and shot in London, Scotland, Turkey and China, would be “Bond with a capital B”.
Craig said he was “tremendously excited” to be stepping back into the role for the first time since 2008’s Quantum of Solace.
Work on the film was postponed, and Bond’s future looked uncertain, when studio MGM filed for bankruptcy in 2010. But MGM’s new management and EON Productions announced that the spy would live to fight another day.
Craig will be joined by Spanish star Javier Bardem as Bond’s nemesis, while British actors Albert Finney, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw will play as-yet-undisclosed roles.
Judi Dench returns as spy chief M and the film introduces two new Bond girls – English actress Naomie Harris as a field agent named Eve and French performer Berenice Marlohe as “a glamorous, enigmatic character” named Severine.
“There’s lots of surprises,” said Mendes, who won an Academy Award for his 1999 film American Beauty.
Filming will take place in London’s government district of Whitehall and on location in Istanbul, Shanghai and the Scottish wilderness. Early reports that the film would shoot in India and South Africa have not materialised, but the producers insisted they had not trimmed Bond’s budget since Quantum of Solace, widely reported to have cost roughly $200 million.
“It is in the same range as the last one,” Wilson said. “We haven’t had to change anything in the script.”
Cast members said they had been training hard for their roles – Craig, it seems, by growing the designer stubble he sported at Thursday’s press conference.
Bardem joked that the hardest part for him was “learning the English vowels”. Harris said she had been doing yoga, learning stunt driving and firing machine guns.
Producers Wilson and Barbara Broccoli kept many details under wraps. Of the plot, they revealed only that “Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her” and MI6 comes under attack.
As for the meaning of the title, Broccoli said it “has some emotional resonance which will be revealed in the film”.
There will be no change to one part of the series’ winning formula – attractive women and hunky men. Asked whether Craig and Bardem would take their shirts off, Broccoli sought to reassure fans.
“Damn right,” she said.
“If Barbara gets her way,” Wilson said, afterwards, “it’ll be more than just their shirts.”