We watched as Skyfall director Sam Mendes went back and forth on whether to continue his tenure with the world’s famous spy, we’ve heard all the (unconfirmed) stories about script rewrites to include more jokes, we’ve seen all the rumours about Oscar winners playing James Bond’s most famous nemesis brought back to life again, and we’ve written far too many articles where we could only refer to 007’s next cinematic adventure as Bond 24.
That’s all about to change though, because at 11:00 GMT today (that was 13:00 local time), EON Productions, MGM and Sony Pictures hosted a live-stream from London’s Pinewood Studios at http://www.007.com where they revealed the film’s official title as…
The 24th James Bond 007 film is called… #SPECTRE https://t.co/g8CCxtk5ga
— James Bond (@007) December 4, 2014
Yes, that’s right, the classic terrorist organization obsessed with assigning their agents numerical titles is back. In the classic series, SPECTRE (aka the SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) was a global terrorist organization led by the cat loving, evil genius Ernst Stravro Blofeld. They were not affiliated with any nation but rather seemed to just be on a mission to cause chaos wherever possible as long it resulted in an increase in their profits and power.
What that means for the story of the new film is still unclear (especially since Mendes specifically declined to comment on it). Many thought the Quantum organization introduced in Quantum of Solace was to be the modern incarnation of the group, but that doesn’t appear to be the case (although they could still have some links between them).
Along with the title announcement, we also got our first look at the full cast which will of course see Daniel Craig returning for his fourth stint as James Bond alongside Ralph Fiennes’ M, Naomie Harris’ Eve Moneypenny, Rory Kinnear’s Bill Tanner and Ben Whishaw’s Q. The new additions are Andrew Scott (Sherlock‘s Moriarty) as Denbigh, Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) as the henchman Mr. Hinx, with the first Bond ladies confirmed in Lea Seydoux (Blue Is the Warmest Colour) as Madeline Swan and Monica Belucci (The Matrix Reloaded) as Lucia Sciarra.
The biggest new member (hur dur) is of course the rumoured Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds), and Mendez cleverly didn’t state exactly who he would be playing. However the official James Bond Twitter account revealed him as a character named Oberhauzer, and as you may recall [SPOILER WARNING] the Daily Mail had alleged that we would be introduced to Waltz’s character under that name, but that he would in fact turn out to be Blofeld. And with that title, that claim certainly gathers a lot of weight.
Director Sam Mendes also unveiled Bond’s new wheels, the Aston Martin DB10, which was designed in collaboration with the movie folk. And it is a thing of high-tech (probably filled with secret machine guns) beauty!
You can check out the full announcement in the clip below.
With Skyfall‘s box-office record-breaking, award winning success, there’s a lot of pressure on Mendes to once again deliver results, and he’s definitely assembled the cast (and car) to pull that off. Spectre starts filming this Monday at Pinewood Studios in London, but will then be shooting all over the world in Mexico City, Rome, Tangier & Erfoud, Morocco, Sölden, Obertilliach and Lake Altausee, Austria. The movie is scheduled for release on November 6, 2015.
Last Updated: December 4, 2014
cookiemonster
December 4, 2014 at 16:27
oooooooh I want that car