DB7

Craig signs for second Bond film

Daniel Craig will play James Bond for a second time, with a new film set to be released in May 2008, producers say.

The actor, who was chosen to replace Pierce Brosnan in the 007 role last year, has faced criticism from some fans for having blond hair.

But Bond producer Barbara Broccoli praised him for "portraying, with emotional complexity, a darker and edgier 007".

Craig, 38, will make his Bond debut in Casino Royale, due out in November.

Big break

He is the sixth actor to play the British secret agent after Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan.

Bond girl Caterina Murino, who stars in Casino Royale, previously said Craig had been upset by criticism of his selection for the role but insisted that he would win over fans.

"This James Bond doesn't look like a little cartoon like before, like the last one or so charming and playful like the first James Bond. This is new," she said.

Craig was born in Chester and grew up in Liverpool.

He studied drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, and got his breakthrough role as hard man Geordie Peacock in the TV series Our Friends in the North.

He has since starred in several Hollywood films, including Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Road To Perdition and Stephen Spielberg's thriller, Munich.

Quiller

They cut the budget in half of this latest one, so they're making two Bonds for the price of one. I don't know whether that's a good idea or bad. Bond hanging from the back of a transit van doesn't quite have that visual excellance to it somehow.;) The fact that 3/4 of the budget comes from product placement, this is probably the cheapest Bond film of them all!

I lost faith when they started filming Casino Royale without even knowing who the villain was. Did they even have a finished script? And it's based on the book, so I'm a bit confused at that.

shead

And rumour has it that the pre-title sequence has already been filmed. The next Bond movie is meant to be based on Ian Fleming's short story RISICO taken from FOR YOUR EYES ONLY first published in 1961. In the late 1950s CBS made an offer to Fleming to write 32 episodes over a two year period for a television show based on the James Bond character. This deal came about after the success of the 1954 television episode adaptation of Casino Royale on the CBS television series Climax!. Fleming agreed to the deal and began to write three outlines for the series; however, CBS later dropped the idea. In 1959 Fleming gathered his outlines and novelised them for a collection he originally titled "The Rough With The Smooth". The title was changed for publication to For Your Eyes Only and was additionally published with the subtitle of "Five Secret Occasions in the Life of James Bond". In America the subtitle was changed to "Five Secret Exploits of James Bond". In later editions, the subtitle was dropped.

Other sources say it's based on Michael G. Wilson's idea.

intelligence

I think he has impressed producers of his current movie before its release thats might be the reason that he has been offered second time. :)