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  1. The CBn Dossier

    The CBn Dossier, February '06

    By Athena Stamos on 2006-03-02

    Athena Stamos

    Welcome to the February CBn Dossier, a wrap-up of all the James Bond 007 news and rumours for last month. In this dossier we’ll be taking a look at the numerous rumours and exciting news about 2006’s Casino Royale, the many literary James Bond releases including Charlie Higson’s 3rd Young Bond Book and much, much more.

    This month’s CBn Dossier is delivered by Athena Stamos (who apologises for the fact it’s two days late due her being inundated with her 24th Birthday celebration.) Enjoy!

    The Casting of Casino Royale

    Felix is back, no he isn’t, yes he is, no he isn’t. AH! Thankfully at the beginning of February Martin Campbell confirmed during and interview with SciFiWire that CIA agent Felix Leiter would indeed be returning in this years film. Though he also confirmed that Q would not be making an appearance, but didn’t we already know this? I think we did.

    German TV guide Hörzu, reported that German actor, Jürgen Tarrach, had been cast as a very minor character. Swiss actor and rapper Carlos Leal told a Swiss news agency that he has landed the role of a croupier in the film and that 12 days of shooting in Prague are scheduled for him. Guess we’ll have to wait and see if these two men show up in the film since they didn’t make the official cast list that was released at the Casino Royale press conference on 15 February at Prague’s Barrandov Studios. A man who did makes the list was Mads Mikkelsen who will be playing Le Chiffre. Our new Bond Girls will be Eva Green (Vesper Lynd) and Caterina Murino (Solonge). The news of our first “official” African American Felix Leiter was a surprise, he will be played by actor Jeffrey Wright. Check our cast announcement story for the full cast list.

    See Craig Run… Read Craig Run…

    The first pictures of Daniel Craig as James Bond that were taken during the filming of Casino Royale appeared on GettyImages last month. Soon after more and more shots of Craig started to pop up all over the internet. Craig in his swim trunks, Craig in camouflage, Craig on the back of a truck… you get the idea. We don’t have the exciting photos up on our site because a number of the James Bond fan sites plus other media sites who posted them got sent an e-mail by the photos owner telling us to take the photos down or legal action would be taken. Hello, they’re photos of Daniel Craig as Bond and we’ll credit you. Ugh, snooty tabloid photographers. Eh hem… oh sorry did I just say that all aloud!? Oops. Anywho, to enjoy these “banned” images just Click Here.

    Possibly the biggest Casino Royale news this month was that the script got out! Both the LatinoReview and IGN put up script reviews. Of course I could give you my own review of this script since it is sitting here on my desk… but naaaa I’d rather CBn not get an angry letter from Eon or Sony plus I don’t want to give anything away, so you’ll have to check it out yourself — just Google for ‘casino royale script review’ to find it.

    Royale Locations

    A huge thank you to our man at Station B! Because of our man, Harry Wickoff, we had plenty of exclusive Bahamas location photos to show you. (Article 1, 2) We hope you enjoyed all of them as Harry put his life on the line to take them! (Photos 1, 2).

    Some filming has already been done in Prague at Modrany Studios and at Strahov monastery, but shooting will continue in Prague after shooting in the Bahamas has finished. Though when the crew returns to Prague in early March they’ll be filming at Barrandov Studios instead. Also our own Tim Roth overheard on SWR1 Radio in Germany that later in the year the Bond crew will be heading to Plana, Czech Republic to shoot in and abandoned hospital. And supposedly there’s to be some filming done at the castle of Loket, a massive gothic castle, in the Czech Republic as well. Plus the Italian newspaper Il Giorno reported that one week of shooting will take place in late May in the ‘Villa del Balbianello’, which is located at the Lago di Como in the region of Lombardy (Northern Italy). Locations scouts also had a look at the casino in the small town of Campione d’Italia, but it is not known whether shooting is actually going to take place there.

    James Bond’s Debuts

    CBn member Ed Harris (aka: Genrewriter) started off a wonderful five part series for us about the James Bond debuts made by the 5 men who came before Daniel Craig. He started us off with Sean Connery, of course, in Doctor No where he looking at various elements of the film, the performance of Mr Connery and the development of the character as well as the evolution of the franchise. Keep your eye out for the other four parts to this series.

    Young Bond Books

    Thanks to The Young Bond Dossier we learned that the US print of Blood Fever, the second Young Bond novel by Charlie Higson, would not be edited for content like the first novel, SilverFin, was. Thank goodness, I hate censorship! We also leaned from The Young Bond Dossier that author Charlie Higson had completed the 3rd Young Bond Novel which is due for release in the UK in January 2007. What is especially interesting to note is that a past character from the Young Bond series will be making a return appearance in this novel. Whom exactly this character will be is not known at this point. In Young Bond Book 3 James Bond faces off against Russian spies.

    From A Book To A Fanzine

    James Bond Fanzine OO7 Magazine announced that issue #48 will be the last paper issue of the magazine. From here on out, OO7 Magazine will be published online at the ever expanding OO7 Magazine Official Website.

    The new James Bond International Fan Club magazine released it’s second issue last month. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang issue #2 featured an overview of the Young Bond phenomenon and a report on the 40th Anniversary Thunderball screening. We were able to give CBn readers a peek at a piece that was included in the second issue, a article by Ajay Chowdhury about Bond title designer Robert Brownjohn.

    A new book by Paul Michael Kane called 007 A Literary Dossier which covers all 32 literary adventures of James Bond supposedly came out last month, but I can’t seem to locate it. Can you? Well, you won’t be able to find it in stores, but perhaps you’ll find a copy on e-bay. Turns out this was a privately printed book only available to those who attended the New York Comic-Con on 24-26 February.

    A new book that you can purchace is a novel by former James Bond author Raymond Benson called Sweetie’s Diamonds. It’s a suspense thriller you just must check out!

    007 Events

    Charlie Axworthy gave us a personalize report of the happenings at the automobile auction in Scottsdale, Arizona where the Thunderball promotional Aston Martin DB5 was auctioned off for 1.9 million dollars… no really…

    But as for what the future holds in Bond eventdom… Richard Kiel will be appearing at Sci-Fi Con in Goteborg, Sweden 4-5 of March. BondStars.com is planning another 007 event for 2006. On 2 July “Bond Girls Are Forever” will be taking place with such guests as Britt Ekland, Tania Mallet, Caroline Bliss and many more. And Matt Sherman has released the details of this years BCW9 which will consist of a cruise to the Bahamas the 12-14 of August.

    Have You Been CommanderBond.net-ed?

    Evan Willnow returned with the CBn Podcast this month after a two month hiatus. Why did we not release a podcast for so long… either we were being lazy, Evan was deathly ill or Eon threatened to sue… you decide. To make up for lost time we released two podcasts in the month of February, the second being hijacked by Charlie Axworthy.

    By the way, incase you didn’t know we have a CBn shop at CafePress.com. Please visit the CBn Store and check out all the cool CBn swag!

    With over 500,000 posts and endless discussion topics, there has never been a better time to join the CBn Forums to discuss Casino Royale and all other Bond topics. Registration is free and only takes a minute. As always, stay tuned to CBn for daily coverage of all things James Bond.

    To discuss this month’s CBn Dossier visit this thread on the CBn Forums.

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