The 25th James Bond film just launched in Jamaica and there’s already trouble in paradise over the title and plot – however Page Six has learned that famed Bond villains Grace Jones and Christoph Waltz will return in cameo roles.
While Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris (Moneypenny) Ben Whishaw (Q) and Léa Seydoux (Madeleine Swann from Spectre) were formally announced on Thursday as returning for Daniel Craig’s swan song as 007, with Oscar winner Rami Malek newly signed as a villain – the movie has no title and no finalized script.
And rather like grumpy Craig himself (who famously said he’d rather “slash his wrists” than return as 007 after 2015’s insipid “Spectre”), Bond 25 opens with a retired 007 who appears to be just as unwilling to go back into her Majesty’s Secret Service, living in “his spiritual home” of Jamaica with Swann.
A source close to Bond 25 said, “They don’t have a script, there’s no title, it is nearly five years since the last Bond. It starts with a retired Bond living in wedded bliss, but the rest of the script is still being worked over. They rolled out the cast this week at Ian Fleming’s villa in Jamaica because if they wait much longer Daniel Craig, who is 51, will be too old, and then he really won’t do the film.”
Brief details of the plot find Bond called back into action when his CIA cohort Felix Leiter, played by Jeffrey Wright, turns up asking for help to rescue a kidnapped scientist. It has been rumored that the plot would also touch heavily on the dangers of powerful tech or social media platforms falling into nefarious hands.
The source added of curmudgeonly Craig’s return, “Everyone on the production side detests working with Daniel, he’s so difficult and makes things impossible. But [Bond producer] Barbara Broccoli thinks he walks on water, and only her opinion matters.”
However Page Six can reveal there are some surprises in the works to inject life into Bond 25 – including a cameo role for “View To A Kill” femme fatale Grace Jones (likely not as her murderous character May Day, who was killed by a bomb in the 1985 classic).
Plus there is a currently scheduled brief return of Christoph Waltz as Blofeld, the villain captured alive at the end of “Spectre.” However Malek’s character will reign as the key villain in Bond 25.
The source continued it was also likely that Swann would be killed off in Bond 25 in a nod to Diana Rigg’s role as Bond’s wife murdered by Blofeld in 1969’s “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
Plus “Fleabag” creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the writing force behind the fantastic female-led twisted BBC and Netflix spy drama “Killing Eve,” was brought in by Craig himself at the 11th hour to join the writing team and inject the script with killer wit.
Finally, Bond 25’s working title, “Shatterhand” (an alias historically used by Blofeld) has been scrapped after it leaked a few months ago, sparking sneers because that was also the title of a primitive punch-up, shoot-em-up ’90s Nintendo game.
Bond 25 is due out on April 8, 2020.