LONDON – In case you hadn”t heard, James Bond has been making his way around the world. Shanghai. Scotland, central London and, soon, Istanbul, Turkey. Today, however, the world”s greatest secret agent is filming his latest thriller on the appropriately named 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios in the UK. Yes, after an almost four-year absence, Bond is back in business with November”s “Skyfall.”
The Sam Mendes feature will be shooting until May and HitFix (along with a slew of other International journalists) were able to visit the set this week to speak to 007 himself (Daniel Craig), his boss M (Judi Dench), one of his latest ladies, er, “girls” (Bérénice Marlohe) and, of course, a master Bond villain, Silva (the incomparable Javier Bardem).
The long wait for “Skyfall” was due to MGM’s financial troubles which put a number of pictures on ice for awhile including “The Cabin in the Woods” and the new “Red Dawn.” Happily for EON Productions the final result found Sony Pictures back as a partner after successful collaborations on “Casino Royale” and “Quantum of Solace.” I asked Craig if the delay helped bring more energy to his third round as Ian Flemming”s iconic spy.
“I think it helped,” Craig says. “I had to quietly just get on with it. We publicly went on that we weren”t doing anything, but we were secretly meeting. We just went on with the job and were very optimistic it would happen because I knew it would.”
What other secrets were revealed during this two-day visit? Will we find out if Adele is singing the title song? Is London”s underground in for a big bang on the big screen? Those questions and more will be answered on Monday morning when the world gets a big media blitz of what”s coming in “Skyfall.”
In the meantime, check out these brand new images of Daniel Craig and Ralph Fiennes in “Skyfall.”
“Skyfall” opens nationwide on Nov. 9.
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