Spy Report: What You Can Expect At Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival kicks off mid-May and according to our source Chase we can expect some Die Another Day related material to be seen at the festival.

To begin with Chase tells us that we'll get our first glimpse of the Teaser Poster. The poster will feature at the Carlton Intercontinental. Simon tells us in the Die Another Day Forums that, in the past, the hotel has played host to the Bond poster which has usually been arranged over and around the main entrance.

Also it seems we may get our first glimpse of the Teaser Trailer at the festival. We have very little news on this at the moment, but we're told that this will be where we see it. And with the amount of footage from Die Another Day already available, why not!

If anyone will be travelling to Cannes and would like to send in news please contact our editor, Daniel Dykes, through [email protected]

If you'd like to discuss this news then you can do so in this thread of the Die Another Day Forums.

Further Details On Filming In London

Earlier today we reported on the possibility of filming for Die Another Day taking place in London.

Rob has just written in to tell us (news which won't be new to anyone in the UK) that the report about Buckingham Palace garden may actually be preparations and practice for the Jubilee celebrations, these are to celebrate the fifty year reign of our current Queen, Queen Elizabeth the second.

A strong possibility. However, the news still does meet with all previous news we've heard to date. So I still have confidence in it.

Spy Report: Set Happenings At Pinewood Studios

There are some big happenings at Pinewood Studio's right now and two sources have checked in to give us the details.

First off is a new set. Spoiler Warning (Highlight To Read) For quite some time CommanderBond.Net has reported that Die Another Day will have action set in Hong Kong. Well Vanquish has just checked in letting me know that there’s now a set a Pinewood labelled ‘Hong Kong Street’. It seems that the First Unit won’t be travelling to Hong Kong as certain media outlets had previously suggested.

Hong Kong will reportedly feature in the film as an escape route for Colonel Moon as he attempts to evade James Bond. .It is rumoured that Bond will travel to the location, however, nothing has been officially confirmed.

And in news about the Ice Palace, our source Max has just checked in to let us know that the palaceSpoiler Warning (Highlight To Read) was recently flooded to simulate the ice palace ‘melting’ on screen. Flooding, as opposed to melting, as required as the Ice Palace isn’t really constructed out of ice.

Some great bits of news there. Thanks to 'Max' and 'Vanquish' for sending the information in.

If you'd like to discuss it you can do so in this thread of the Die Another Day Forums. See you there!

Filming In London?

'Morton Slumber' has just written in to let us know of some filming in London he's just heard about;

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It's some news from London that I think you will find interesting.

Apparently, very early this morning (Tuesday 30th April) at about 4am a stunt man as James Bond parachuted into the grounds of Buckingham Palace with a Union Jack parachute!

This should be quite easy to confirm, big, public and the Mall was closed to traffic.

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This news does conincide with other reports that CommanderBond.Net has received recently. We'll let you know more news as it comes to hand.

If you'd like to discuss the news you can do so in this thread of the Die Another Day Forums!

More on filming in Norfolk

As CBn reported earlier this day, scenes for Die Another Day were filmed recently in Norfolk, England.

However, CBn's partner site MI6 can exclusively reveal more information on the filming.

It was planned to film a Spoiler Warning (Highlight To Read) Helicopter Crash Sequence “somewhere” in Norfolk. MI6 can also confirm that the scene was originally scripted to have some American military personel die in the sequence, but after the tragic events of September 11th, this was rewritten. However, the helicopter crash and explosion is still in Die Another Day.

Unfortunately, it rained cats and dogs in Norfolk last Friday, and the filming has to be rescheduled.

Discuss the topic in this thread in the Die Another Day Forums!

Scenes Filmed In Norfolk, UK

The BBC's 'Look East' have reported that scenes for Die Another Day were recently filmed in Norfolk, which is a county in the east of England and forms part of a wider region known as East Anglia. The scene in question, evidently takes place in Korea.

The filming invovled Pierce Brosnan and featured a Spoiler Warning (Highlight To Read) a yellow sports car nose-diving into a rice paddy. The film crews had constructed a make-shift hut with an Oriental-look to it near the paddy.

Short, but an interesting details.

A big thanks to Rob for sending in the news!

Offical Site updates with information on Gustav Graves and Eden Project!

JamesBond.Com has been updated with information on the shooting of scenes in Eden Project in February.

As usual, there aren't many interesting information in the newsflash. The most exciting part is about the film's villain, Gustav Graves.

Gustav Graves, played by Toby Stephens, Spoiler Warning (Highlight To Read) is supposed to be keen on preserving the environment though that public facade is at odds with his real intentions. So the unit has come here to film some scenes which are part of Graves’ business interests, as director Lee Tamahori explains. “He’s built a climate controlled biosphere in order to prove to the world that he’s a good guy, that he gives stuff back to nature.”

Director Lee Tamahori and actor Toby Stephens

We are also told about the difficulties in shooting in Eden;

The Project managers were initially nervous about allowing the Bond crew into the domes but so keen was Lee to film here that he agreed to all of the restrictions.

“It’s very difficult when you make a picture like this with hundreds of technicians and lots of action to fit into somebody else’s timetable. Normally, we would rent a place, take it over and shut it down for several days. Well, in the discussions with everyone here, they figured they could possibly go ahead with our requests but they could not shut down. Now we wanted the place so much because it was cool, that we figured we had better fit in with those requests, so we did.”

Be sure to visit this thread in the Die Another Day Forums!

Lisa Faulkner was to play Miranda Frost!

As Teletext reports, Ex-Holby City star Lisa Faulkner is feeling shaken and stirred after being snubbed in her bid to become a Bond girl.

The blonde actress, 29, flopped when she auditioned for the new 007 film "Die Another Day", starring Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry.
She said: "I was gutted that I did not get a part as I would love to play a Bond girl. I think it was an unknown actress who finally got the role." This unknown actress is, as we all know, Rosamund Pike.

Describing her showing as "the worst audition of my life", Lisa went on: "I tried to look all confident but as soon as the director spoke to me I went to pieces and screwed it up.

"But I think I would make a fantastic spy. I would love to dress up in a beret, dark glasses and a trenchcoat and go undercover, posing as a glamorous Russian agent."

Propably Mr. Faulner auditioned together with Salma Hayek, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Saffron Burrows, as CBn's partner site MI6 reported first back in January.

Be sure to discuss this topic in this thread in the Die Another Day Forums!

Foreign Titles of "Die Another Day"…

Six weeks after the release of the title of the 20th James Bond Installment, "Die Another Day", distributor Fox is anouncing the foreign titles for the movie.

In Germany it is going to be called "Stirb an einem anderen Tag" and in France "Meurs un autre Jour", which both are the direct tranlations of "Die Another Day".

In Portugal and Brazil the movie will be named "Um Novo Dia Para Morrer", which means "A New Day To Die", in Poland it is going to be "Smierc Nadejdzie Jutro", "Death Comes Tomorrow".

Other titles are to follow, if you know already the title of "Die Another Day" in your country, please add it to this thread in the Die Another Day Forums!

Below The Surface: Sex and the Secret Agent

Good films have subtext. In the last part of this series on the subtext of various James Bond films, we took a look at the subtext 1967's You Only Live Twice. Then we mentioned this would be a three part series on sub-text; well it seems it will be a four part series instead.

In the second part of this series we'll take a look at the subtext of 1963's From Russia With Love.

In From Russia with Love, James Bond is sent to Istanbul to sleep with a Russian cipher clerk in order to get a decoder machine. "Just make sure you measure up," warns M. The villain's plot? Capture 007's sexual performance on film and use it to discredit the Secret Service when his "suicide" is discovered. Kinky stuff? You bet. And there's more. Much more.

From Russia with Love is really a catalog of "secret" sexual fetishes thinly veiled by the world of the '60s Secret Agent. Think about it. FRWL depicts sadism (making two fish fight to the death); oil massage (Grant on SPECTER island); S&M (Klebb's handy riding crop and brass knuckles); pimp prostitution (Bond and Tatiana are both ordered to have sex); sexual fixation (Tatiana falls in love with a photo of Bond "like young girls fall in love with movie stars"); lesbianism (Tatiana's “interview” with Klebb); polygamy (Kerim's multiple children suggest multiple wives); stripping (or in this case belly dancing); catfighting (more on this later); menage a trois (Bond is delivered both gypsy girls to his tent); bondage (the dead Prussian in the back of the Renault is very well tied); oral sex (Tatiana's mouth is just the "right size" for Bond); voyeurism (the men watch Bond and Tatiana as they secretly film them, among MANY other examples); public exhibitionism (Tatiana wants to wear her nightgown "in Piccadilly"); sadomasochistic homosexuality (the Grant-Bond confrontation); and yes, even foot worship (how else can you account for the appeal of that spike-tipped shoe or Grant's insistence that Bond, "Crawl over here and kiss my foot!"). Much of this comes from the novel, and it's no secret that Fleming enjoyed a taste of the whip from time to time.

The gypsy girlfight is FRWL's most infamous and sadistic scene. Never has a Bond movie felt so much like a snuff film. Where most movies poke fun at "catfights," this film puts it on a level of gladiatorial match. They don't say the girls are fighting to death, but they don't say they aren't! In fact, the fight between the two women "in love with the same man" is so savage (or so arousing?) that Bond asks for it to be stopped. Strange that the only way we're "saved" from this scene is by an explosion of good old-fashioned gunplay. Stranger yet is the relief we feel at the arrival of this "safe" movie violence. How sexually charged is this scene? When From Russia With Love aired on ABC throughout the '70s and '80s, the ENTIRE gypsy camp sequence was cut from the film. I doubt it was because of the belly dancer. Related to the girlfight in its depiction of sexual violence not usually found in a Bond film is when Bond hits Tatiana in REAL anger aboard the Orient Express. It's interesting to note that Bond is posing as her husband at the time. Her crime? She lied to him. Dark.

But the confrontation with Grant is the ultimate ordeal for James Bond in this sexually lethal world. Of all sexual terrors, being on the end of a homosexual rape certainly ranks high. The lead-up to the fight is highly charged with innuendoes. Grant has clearly been aroused by the footage of Bond and Tatiana's lovemaking. A line which exists in the continuity script but is missing from existing prints is when Grant says, "What a performance!" Grant makes Bond get on his knees (waist level) and tells him it'll be "painful and slow." Let's not forget that this whole confrontation is taking place in a train compartment (read bunk, read bed). And what's the first thing that goes when they start their "struggle"? The light. There's an orgasmic quality to Grant's silent death, but maybe I should stop here before I lose the family audience, which, by the way, is what the movie does as well. In the book, the Grant-Bond fight is the climax of the story and rightfully so. But the filmmakers felt compelled to give us a helicopter and boat chase, which dilute the sexual subtext of the film. But maybe that's the intent. After all, sometimes a boat chase is just a boat chance.