Spectre

In a world exclusive this website can announce weeks after everyone else that the next James Bond film will be titled Spectre. To be completely frank with you I think our slight tardiness sometimes with breaking Bond news comes down to the fact that we don't have an awful lot of interest in the Daniel Craig films and are running out of ways to express that without seeming like a stuck record. We have our tin hats on and are bunkering down in hope that the franchise will find an actor more to our tastes in the not too distant future.

What is Spectre all about then? It sounds like the usual rubbish. An attack on MI6, 007 goes rogue, a traitor, Daniel Craig will have a crewcut. I have not studied the SONY leaks in any great detail yet (not really for fear of spoilers but more because I couldn't be bothered) but it sounds exactly like the other Daniel Craig films replete with third act to be cobbled together at the last minute by Purvis & Wade via the medium of fuzzy felt. More of the same. There will be some chases, a location shoot in Italy, etc, etc.

One leak I did notice was the suggestion that in the film MI6 and MI5 are asked to merge. That's stupid enough but I initially read it as MI6 and MFI merging and spent a good few seconds trying to work out why the United Kingdom's secret intelligence services were being asked to link up with an online supplier of kitchens and bedroom furniture.

Here is the official premise for the film - 'A cryptic message from an unlikely source sets James Bond navigating the layers of a sinister organisation known as SPECTRE. As M continues fighting political pressures that threaten the future of MI6, Bond draws closer to uncovering a hidden truth that threatens to destroy everything he has fought to protect.' Some Austrian locations and the return of SPECTRE/Blofeld hint at an OHMSS influence.

Who is going to play Blofeld? It looks like Christoph Waltz (billed as Franz Oberhauser, hmmn) unless Eon are planning a daft Steven Moffat style twist. You wouldn't expect the return of Blofeld and SPECTRE to be done and dusted in one film after so many years away so I daresay Babara Broccolli is already working on ways to spin this out into (groan) more Daniel Craig films.

And, finally, I would like to loudly applaud myself for a 2008 article in which I listed ten people who should have been in a Bond film and named Monica Bellucci as one of them. Better late than never I suppose. That was the only person on my list to subsequently turn up in a Bond film but let's quickly gloss over that. Here is the hilarious blurb I wrote for Monica way back when:

'Graduated from a role on the Italian version of Blankety Blank to films like The Passion Of The Christ and the Matrix sequels. You'll notice that the likes of Tilda Swinton or Samantha Morton haven't been poached for key roles in Quantum Of Solace. Why? Because the studio go for looks rather than acting ability when they cast the female leads. For this reason it's strange that Bellucci (who has the archetypal generic 'Bond Girl look') hasn't turned up in a James Bond film yet. Widely reported to have been Pierce Brosnan's choice to play Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies. It isn't tremendously difficult to imagine that she might have done as well as Lois Lane did in that film. The Italian actress was a popular suggestion for a lead role in a Bond film for several years and probably still is now.'

- Luke "The Amazing Criswell" Quantrill

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