Variety has posted an interesting article concerning the team over at EON Productions who, in cooperation with Sony Pictures, is readying to bring James Bond back to the big screen with the currently untitled James Bond 22. The film is currently in pre-production for a December start date and a targeted November 2008 release with a script from Casino Royale scribes, Neil Purvis, Robert Wade and Paul Haggis and Marc Forster replacing Martin Campbell in the director’s chair. Of course, Daniel Craig is back as Bond and the twenty-second film promises to be just as gritty as the last and still will not include old school favs gadget-master Q and Miss Moneypenny.
Sony’s co-chairman Amy Pascal told Variety, “What we found is that you can strip away a lot of the bells and whistles, but it still feels uniquely like a Bond film,” she said. “Throughout the history of the franchise, the actors, tone and style of the films have changed, but the fundamental essence of what makes Bond endures.”
EON head Barbara Broccoli seems to realize the lofty expectations the reboot created, “Casino Royale has set a new standard, and it’s now a question of meeting those expectations for the next one and delivering a film that is emotional and dramatic as well as action-packed.”
Storywise, Haggis says, “It will be the same Bond you saw in Casino, a very human and flawed assassin, a man who has to navigate a morally complex and often cynical world while attempting to hold onto his deep beliefs of what is right and wrong.”
The new film will pick up where Casino left off with Bond hunting after the organization that was only slightly hinted at in Casino, as he tries to find out who was behind the Le Chiffre operation.
Everyone else is keeping mum on the rest of the plot, but Craig let slip, “He also has to deal with revenge because he has lost the girl. Bond is still maybe too headstrong, and he doesn’t make all of the right decisions.” Not exactly ground-breaking news as it could have been assumed based on the end of Casino, but it does give us an idea on just what kind of emotional involvement we can expect.
To read the complete article, which also talks with new Bond helmer Marc Forster click here.
