A mysterious insider over at Absolutely James Bond message boards has reported that the start of production of Bond 21 has been delayed until April 2005. Insider “Pierce-B” proved his reliability during the shooting of Die Another Day multiple times, but he was also far out in 2003 when he “confirmed” that location scouts had visited South Africa and Liverpool. According to CBn’s own sources, no locations were scouted in 2003 at all.

However, an April 2005 start of production would accompany the rumours of a 2006 release date. Originally, the shooting start of Bond 21 was dated January 2005. But now it appears that no filming will start until MGM is sold, and the future of MGM seems very opaque. Other reasons not to believe in a November 2005 release date include that no director has been announced yet and no other details have been released so far. A few weeks back, MGM vice chairman and COO Chris McGurk said that Bond 21 is ahead of a schedule compared to Die Another Day in 2001. But Lee Tamahori was officially announced on jamesbond.com on August 22, a few days earlier it was officially confirmed that Bond is going to drive Aston Martin again. Likewise, Michael Apted was named director of The World is Not Enough on August 8.

Now, August is about to end with no official news of a director nor who will play 007. Latest word from “pierce-b” regarding the new Bond actor was that James Purefoy was in the run, but Purefoy recently told Hello magazine that while the role would be “a great honour,” news of him as 007 #6 was just a rumour.

Let’s hope that we will hear from MGM soon.

To discuss this news visit this thread in CBn’s Bond 21 forums.

Thanks to CBn forum member Martin Mystery for the tip-off.