Depending on who you read, Daniel Craig, as well as the cast and crew of Quantum of Solace (aka Bond 22), were either caught up in the middle of a gang turf war down in Panama ... or they're completely safe without a worry in the world. Oh yes, I definitely said gang turf war -- and if the Daily Mail is right (which they're probably not), things seem to be getting hella dangerous down on the Panama set of the next James Bond film. DM says, "Daniel has had to dodge the crossfire as gangsters spray bullets at each other on the set. Bond girls Gemma Arterton, 22, and Olga Kurylenko, 28, are also under armed guard, while terrified crew are having to brave the deadliest warzones as they struggle to get the blockbuster "in the can." And that's not all -- a little above that quote, they claim Craig's guards have already "taken out" one gangster in a hail of bullets. How do you say ... AWESOME DVD extras in (what do they speak down in Panama?).

Now, according to a statement from producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, this whole thing is just a big misunderstanding. In a joint statement, they say, "The filming of 'Quantum of Solace', with director Marc Forster at the helm, is on schedule and will continue as planned in Panama. None of the cast or crew have ever been in danger. Reports of troubles with gangs are untrue. The protests are to do with the fatal shooting of a construction worker in Colon and are unrelated to our filming activities. Our cast and crew have not been threatened and no thefts or muggings have occurred. These scurrilous and irresponsible reports in The Daily Star have caused distress to the UK families of our filming unit."

Really? I wonder why? Was it the part where they quote an anonymous crew member saying, "Quite a few of the crew are considering clearing out because they fear for their lives. It's chaotic." Regardless, I think someone needs to evaluate what the hell is going on in Panama right now -- last thing we need is James Bond being "taken out" when he still has a few more films to shoot.

The British Times has gotten word that Bond 22 will be filming a scene next week at the Barbican, a performing arts center in the north of London. The center is typically used to host music concerts, art exhibitions and theater productions, and according to the paper the "a sign has gone up giving warning that next week it will be the venue for the filming of a scene from the next James Bond film, currently working title Bond 22, which will again star Daniel Craig. Relax, ladies, Craig won't be there as far as I know, but in the Sculpture Court ... they will film a man talking on a mobile phone, the sign says. We'll have to wait for the release of the film, set for November, to see why it was necessary to go to the Barbican to film someone talking on their mobile phone." And that's it. At first blush, this sounds to me a lot like the Miami Body Worlds scene in Casino Royale, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, a source who would know tells me that Eon Productions has yet to release any information whatsoever on Bond casting to Sony, and that includes a thumbs up or down on Gemma Arterton having a role in the film. In other words, they are trying their level best to keep all of this information secret for the time being. Still, I bet that whoever the actress is, she'll eventually be spotted lunching or walking down the street with Barbara Broccoli or Michael Wilson and the game will be up. The last time a major hiring decision was made -- Marc Forster -- the press knew about it before the release could be put out, because the press knew that Daniel Craig was incongruously walking down the street with Broccoli in L.A, obviously to talk business.

It was just before noon on Labor Day, the last day of the Telluride Film Festival, and heaps of passholders were crowded into the Town Park in Telluride for the big passholder Labor Day Picnic, the second of two big feed parties the Telluride Film Festival throws for its passholders. Storm clouds hovered threateningly, but they were nowhere near as threatening as the clouds hovering on the brows of some of the eight women called there to put on a panel for the fest attendees. The panel topic: "Is There a Woman Behind Every Good Movie? The Gender Shift in the Film World."

An hour or so earlier, panelist Tamara Jenkins, director of The Savages, which sneaked at the fest, had gone off on a tangent during her Conversation with Juno director Jason Reitman over at the Courthouse about this very panel, and how being asked to participate in panels on women in film always makes her feel like she's on the "special olympics" panel. "It's either, oh, look, you made a FILM! Isn't that cute," she drolled in a cutsie "let's talk to the baby like it's an idiot" voice or, "You GO, girl" as she thrust her fists in the air. She laughed about it, but the annoyance wasn't a put on. She joked about all the implications of being labeled a "female filmmaker" rather than just a filmmaker ("Tell us, Tamara -- what's it like to direct a film ... while wearing a BRA?") but she made it clear that given her druthers, she'd far prefer that her gender wasn't an issue at all.

A while later, Jenkins was milling about in front of the platform schmoozing with the seven other female filmmakers who had been persuaded to participate in the panel: Diablo Cody (screenwriter of Juno); Tannishtha Chatterjee (Brick Lane); Alexandra Sun (producer of Blind Mountain); Laura Linney (The Savages); Jennifer Jason Leigh (Margot at the Wedding), Jyll Johnstone (director, Hats Off!) and Sarah Gavron (director, Brick Lane). This formidable group of women got up on the platform, and then we found that this panel about women filmmakers is being led by ... a man. Now, not that I have anything against men (heck, I like some of them quite a lot), but I wasn't the only one who found this a little odd. With all the women writing about film, teaching about film, making films, even staffing this festival, they couldn't find a woman to host this panel? I know Anne Thompson skipped out on Telluride this year, but surely they could have found someone. Anyone? Anyone?

"An epic display of wrong-headedness," is how Danny Leigh, of The Guardian, puts it. I don't think I could say it better. He's talking, of course, about the apparent decision of the producers of Bond 22 to go in the direction of more silly jokes this time around, instead of the straight and serious approach that worked so well for Casino Royale. "In the wake of Daniel Craig's debut in the role, the trick [to saving the franchise] seemed obvious," Leigh writes. "No jokes. That simple. Reviving the franchise came as easily as removing its once-trademark one-liners, Craig's mirthless scowl an emblematic presence in a film full of chilly brutality but with little in the way of double entendres." Leigh goes on to remind Broccoli and Co. that it was the "creaking gags that sank Bond as a cinematic force" the first time around, and sparked the necessary re-boot. If there's anything the Bond producers should be especially cautious about, it's re-introducing humor at this point.

In other Bond news, Marc Forster is apparently not being shy about making his Bond his own: according to CommanderBond.net, he's decided not to bring back Peter Lamont, the production designer who has worked on nearly every Bond film since Goldfinger. (Shouldn't the guy be retirement-age anyway?) Instead, the production designer on Bond 22 will be Dennis Gassner, an Oscar winer who has worked with Craig before on Road to Perdition and The Golden Compass. Stay tuned to Cinematical as we continue to lobby the producers to put an end to the funny business.

I hate to deliver such disheartening news right before the weekend, but Daniel Craig has told Britain's Daily Express that, after Casino Royale delivered so wonderfully by showing us a tough, no-bullshit Bond, the producers have apparently decided to go off the rails in the next installment by re-introducing the 'Bond comedy' antics that made most of Roger Moore's Bond films unwatchable. I just can't get behind this move in the slightest. Excising the bad humor of the Bond series was the smartest move they made during the re-launch -- even smarter than hiring Craig -- and there's simply no reason for them to go back to the pun-happy days of yore. I mean, really, what are they thinking? Let's hope this is more Craig speaking for himself than actually announcing real policy, although it doesn't seem that's the case.

In other Bond news, the next Bond book has been announced. Called Devil May Care, it's being written by British writer Sebastian Faulks and will be in book stores in 2008, with a commemoration of Ian Fleming's 100th birthday in mind. The only plot elements we know of the book so far are that it will be set during the Cold War and -- shock of all shocks -- will feature a variety of exotic locales. That's a new twist for the Bond series, eh? Also, one final thing on the Bond front: for those of you who have been asking what gives with our Bondcast, we're working on it -- a new incarnation is returning soon, we promise!

I guess no one ever said James Bond was a master of disguise. The gentleman you see to the right of the picture, in the Panama Jack hat and sunglasses, is Daniel Craig. The two people he's walking with are long-time Bond series producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson. And they're not walking down some cobble-stoned street in London, but in L.A., a stone's throw away from the Sony offices in Culver City. The picture, which was taken last week, was recently sent in to Bond website MI6. With Craig's crazy schedule these days, there was no way the Bond team would have gotten significant face-time with him unless he were being asked to come and personally approve a new director for you know what -- and today the Hollywood Reporter confirms it. Marc Forster has the gig.

The director of Finding Neverland, Stranger than Fiction and Monster's Ball, Forster was the most likely candidate for the job ever since a credible source claimed the offer had already been put to him. Also, he makes sense. He's well-respected and his movies do okay, but he's not an auteur who is going to come in and tell Barbara Broccoli which end is up. He'll stick to the script and try to make it sing. Sadly, my candidate, Anthony Minghella, got left out in the cold, which is really too bad. Minghella could have done great things with this one. He's a master of epic filmmaking -- the George Stevens of today -- and great with romance. He's also a writer, and could have put his own stamp on this thing without overwhelming it. And he really needs a hit. Oh well -- the director speculation is over now. We can go back to counting the minutes until Carice van Houten is confirmed.

Anyone who has seen the masterful Black Book knows that Carice van Houten is destined for major, lasting stardom, and Hollywood seems to be catching on quickly. We've been hearing rumors for a while now that van Houten is in consideration for the female lead in the next James Bond adventure, but if Eva Green's casting timetable is any guide, the deal could potentially go unannounced for another eight months, if it happens. Still, van Houten isn't cooling her heels -- after recently signing on for an indie project about South African poet Ingrid Jonker, she's now landed a role in a major Hollywood production. She's signed on to Bryan Singer's Valkyrie, presumably as Nina von Stauffenberg, the 30 year-old wife of Tom Cruise's character, a German general who plots to assassinate Hitler. In leaked excerpts from the script online, Nina von Stauffenberg is described only as a "beautiful, dignified" woman. The stock in this project just skyrocketed, in my opinion.

Valkyrie is ramping up shooting in July, and is expected to be wrapped well before 2008 -- I think Bryan Singer is required to be available for Superman by February or March. Also, as I previously mentioned, the Jonker biopic is lensing around Europe and will undoubtedly be a quick shoot, not some drawn out, protracted thing, so van Houten's commitments have not yet put her out of the running for Bond. Heads up, Barbara Broccoli -- her price isn't getting any lower. Complete the deal now, so that you can have the next Garbo in your Bond film.

If you remember our reporting last year on the endless stream of names thrown around for Bond girls in Casino Royale (Rose Byrne! Thandie Newton! Kathy Bates!), you know all news on this series isn't set in stone until the film rolls. Just last week, we had our first Bond girl rumor for Bond 22, which isn't set for release until November 7, 2008! But we do now have confirmation on one aspect of the next Bond that should please fans of Daniel Craig's last outing as the superspy (i.e. pretty much everyone). Previous reports were correct: Bond 22 will be a direct continuation of the events started in Casino Royale. Since most Bond films have been stand-alone adventures, this should be another good way to shake (not stir) the formula.

Production designer Peter Lamont, who has worked on nearly every Bond film in some capacity, briefly discussed Bond 22 at a tribute to Pinewood Studios in France last week and confirmed the sequel approach. Lamont also said pre-production on the next official James Bond film is "definitely in the beginning stages." Producer Barbara Broccoli was asked at a junket last year whether the sequel approach would happen, and responded: "At the end of this film (Royale), there is unfinished business. There is an evil force, but there's also internal unfinished business that he has to resolve. We're planning to go forward and resolve some of this. Quite how we do it I don't know at the moment. That's what we're working on. That's the big challenge."

Producers Michael G. Wilson and Broccoli have reportedly met several times with Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, writers of The World is Not Enough, Die Another Day, and Royale, most likely to brainstorm ideas for the Bond 22 script. Anyone with any interest in these and other James Bond developments should check out Cinematical's latest feature, the Bondcast. There's a new one every other Friday.

I'm now convinced that we'll have a steady stream of Bond rumors until the next film finally hits theaters sometime during the 2008 holiday season, especially since the casting game is already being played. The Australian magazine New Idea has just published a piece that claims Aussie actress Abbie Cornish, most notable for the film Somersault, is flying to Singapore to meet with Bond principals about a role in the next film. A source at MGM -- who knows what kind of source -- apparently had the following to say to the paper: "Abbie is perfect because she is not familiar to film audiences, but at the same time people have become intrigued by her. She may not have enjoyed being caught up in a scandal at the time but it certainly helped her profile."

The scandal being referred is the one where Cornish allegedly broke up Reese Witherspoon's marriage to Ryan Phillippe. The paper claims that Cornish is due to meet with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli as well as MGM executives and Daniel Craig. This isn't the only Bond rumor flying around, of course. A major villain role in Bond 22 -- Vesper's Algerian boyfriend -- is also reportedly being cast, and Croatian actor Goran Visnjic, most known for his role as a doctor on the television show ER, has been talked about as an ideal choice for the role. Stay tuned to Cinematical as we waste terabytes bunking and de-bunking each new Bond rumor that comes down the pike. Also, check out our new regular Bondcast podcast, appearing every other Friday!

Her hands were lifeless in his. "My darling," he said. "Won't you tell me? Do you know, that first morning I was coming back to ask you to marry me. Can't we go back to the beginning again? What is this dreadful nightmare that is killing us?" At first she said nothing, then a tear slowly rolled down her cheek. "You mean you would have married me?" Bond nodded. "Oh my God,' she said. -- Ian Fleming's Casino Royale

There are two serious love stories in the James Bond canon, nine books apart. The first, Casino Royale, is the inaugural Bond story. Thanks in part to an ill-conceived and boring parody film in 1967, Casino went 55 years before a serious effort was mounted to film it. The other, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, is story number ten, and pairs Bond with a brash young heiress and scion of a pan-European crime syndicate named Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo. Both stories have down endings, and fans of the film series often feel a sense of robbery with regards to the second, since Albert Broccoli waited until after Connery left to make a faithful adaptation of a superior Bond story. George Lazenby, despite being adored by some contrarian critics, was fairly assessed at the time as a failure. He was reportedly a terror to work with and his interpretation is so different from Connery's that the film almost stands outside the series. And now that Fleming's stories will no longer be used for forthcoming films, there's seemingly no chance for a re-do of On Her Majesty's.

That means the current film version of Casino Royale may have to stand as one of the only serious attempts to transmute Ian Fleming's idea of 'Bond drama' to the big screen. Not that it's a PBS piece or anything. The film is neatly cut in two, with one half faithfully adapting a present-day version of Fleming's novel (only 213 pages) and the other half devoted to big, wordless action set-pieces. You can't really expect anything more tame than that, with so much money at stake, I guess. But the interesting thing to note is that the drama in Casino Royale actually works, despite its sparsity. The origin of Bond's asshole-persona is resurrected as an epic origin tale of romantic treason, with the supremely gorgeous and worldly Vesper Lynd eating the young, naive spy for breakfast. The book ends on an abrupt quote, resurrected word-for-word in the film, that almost suggests (to me, anyway) that Bond may have been set up with Vesper as a final stage of his training. A necessary freezing process.

Two weeks ago, Cinematical received an invitation to a two-day press bonanza for Casino Royale. Events would kick off with a Sunday evening cocktail party and screening, followed by a day of round-robin interviews at a swank Park Avenue hotel, with catered breakfast and lunch. We want our readers to know that in order to safeguard our journalistic integrity, we politely declined all the free food and booze, except for a comp hotdog at the screening. Almost every notable from the film, with the exception of Judi Dench, turned up for the question/answer roundtables. Daniel Craig, the controversial choice to re-launch the Bond character, was there. So was the unnervingly beautiful French actress Eva Green, who plays Ian Fleming's first Bond girl, Vesper Lynd. Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, who was plucked from obscurity to play the film's snake-like villain, Le Chiffre, was also on hand. So was Italian beauty Caterina Murino, who plays a more traditional Bond girl in the film.

Director Martin Campbell, returning for his second Bond film after Goldeneye, and the series' longtime producer Barbara Broccoli, were also in attendance. The following is a sampling of the endless questions and answers bandied about on that day. Please note that it contains every possible spoiler about Casino Royale -- who lives, who dies, the ending, what will happen in the next film, etc ... if you want to be surprised, stop reading now.

Daniel Craig

Cinematical: Barbara Broccoli has implied that she felt Die Another Day was over-the-top. Is that something you personally want to avoid as you go forward with these films? "All I'm concerned about is that we cast the right people in the roles. As for being over the top, I mean for Christ's sakes, Mads weeps blood. That's quite over the top. But it's great because it's a beautiful Bond moment. It's done with a dab. I want it to be as stylish as it possibly can. You can do anything. If it's in the plot, you can do anything. If it's right and it feels good and it's not there because it's self-consciously there. We're in a fantasy world. This isn't real life."

Pierce Brosnan's last memorable line as James Bond comes early in Die Another Day, during a routine walking tour with gadget guru and perpetual shut-in Q. After passing by some vintage toys from his twenty prior adventures -- they don't seem to spark much recognition -- Bond is led to a vehicle track, where an empty platform comes rolling by. "The ultimate in British engineering," Q announces, proudly. "You must be joking," comes the reply. Apparently, someone was joking. In addition to the invisible Aston Martin, the last and least of the Brosnan quartet also featured a mansion chiseled out of ice, a medical procedure for changing a person's race, and an orbiting magnifying glass used by the villain to cook enemies on the ground like ants. The whole enterprise smelled of Viagra. Enter producer Barbara Broccoli, who like a Templar Knight, has devoted her life to fulfilling a task handed down by her father -- protecting the Bond franchise from harm. Brosnan was tossed, and a series re-boot commissioned. How severely the foundations would be rocked no one knew.

What's been delivered is a movie not only exciting and sharp-eyed, but also weirdly respectful of the character Ian Fleming first dreamed up at his Goldeneye resort in Jamaica. Casino Royale, the origin tale, is unfortunately saddled with one of the series' least evocative titles. A better one might have been Ballbreaker, which would not only reference the story's signature scene -- when the villain Le Chiffre captures Bond and attacks his balls with a carpet beater -- it would also get at the creation moment, when the Bond we know is punished into existence by a velvet heartbreaker called Vesper Lynd. Luminous French actress Eva Green melts the screen as the Eve-figure in Bond mythology, who rides shotgun for 007's first globe trot, beginning in the toy soldier kingdom of Montenegro and going all the way to an oceanside Bahamas vista, and further. Green makes this Vesper's film, with her actions half-explaining, half-justifying everything that will follow her -- a thousand misogynist sneers, a catalog of cold remarks, and the hero's often-suspicious inability to save the girl.

While I'm not the biggest James Bond fan, I've watched a ton of the films and often enjoy the suave, stylized action sequences (complete with cool, sexy dialogue) found in a good amount of the twenty Bond flicks currently available. After listening to all those Daniel Craig haters over the course of the past year, I was pumped to find the latest Casino Royale trailer to be, well, fantastic.

Add to that this very promising test screening review over at AICN, and folks -- we could be in store for one heck of a fun ride. According to the scooper, Casino Royale was recently screened in London under the top-secret title, Alkazan. (Remember that name folks, just in case you're asked to attend a similar screening.) Producers Michael Wilson and Barbara Broccoli were on hand to ask the audience (roughly 40 people) some questions afterward. What did they think? Says the scooper, "There was a huge round of applause after. And, believe me folks, this is London, you won't get a huge round of applause if you walked inside a toy shop and purchased a board-game called 'Huge Round Of Applause'. Our reviewer goes to on to call the film "fantastic" and even compares its setting to that of a Quentin Tarantino flick. What? Tarantino? You may have to just read it for yourself ...

Odds and ends from Friday:

• It worries me to watch the producers of Casino Royale talk so much about the film they plan to make after Royale, instead of, well, the film they have coming out this fall. While it's already been discussed on several occasions, Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson officially announced their plans to release the 22nd film in the James Bond franchise on May 2, 2008. Pic, which will be competing against Paramount's big screen adaptation of the Marvel comic Iron Man, will find Daniel Craig reprising his 007 role.
• You've already heard me rant about those clever little pop-culture phrases Hollywood writers dream up, so there's no point in regurgitating my own shtick. Yes, they're annoying. Yes, I hate them. Let's move on. Paramount Pictures has snatched up the spec script Swingles, written by Duncan Birmingham. Romantic comedy will center around a single guy who is dumped by his "wingman" and forced to team up with a woman he can't stand in order to meet single ladies. Birmingham said he came up with the idea after stalking thousands of women in karaoke bars throughout the country. Okay, the stalking part isn't true -- but it does make the story more interesting, right? The Swingle Stalker? I like that.
• If you live in China and have spent numerous hours praying Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible 3 would somehow find a way onto the big screen, you're in luck -- the film has finally made it into theaters ... minus six minutes. And now we finally know which scenes were removed: One showed Cruise distracting Chinese soldiers by throwing baseballs, then killing them; the other involved elderly Chinese playing mahjong, while Ethan Hunt's wife is being held hostage next door. Seems fair, but how did they miss the fact that Tom Cruise is in the film? Shouldn't he be censored as well?

According to IGN via a couple different sources (Daily Express and FemaleFirst.co.uk) in the UK, Daniel Craig will be shooting back-to-back Bonds with the 22nd film in the franchise gearing up for a release in 2007. Get it -- 007 in 007? Isn't that just adorable? I can envision the massive marketing campaign behind the bad boy right now ... and I can also envision poking fun of it numerous times on this website. We're not even halfway through 2006 and I'm already craving 2007. Go figure.

While producer Barbara Broccoli has already confirmed a follow up to Casino Royale, not much else has been heard except that it was in its early stages and the story would pick up where Royale leaves off. However, both sources are quoted as saying there will be a new Bond in 2007 and that Craig will have to shoot back-to-back, allowing time in between to promote Royale.

Like IGN, while it may be true that Broccoli and company would like to release another Bond in 2007, it seems impossible for them shoot both films back-to-back seeing as, supposedly, a script for the 22nd film isn't finished yet, no one (except for Craig) has been cast, locations aren't set and, well, that's a lot to do in, like, a couple months. Look at the crap producers went through casting Casino Royale alone, imagine trying to cast another film before the first even hits theaters? Your thoughts?