Spectre back to haunt Bond in new film?

The James Bond live-streamed press conference from Pinewood on Thursday, December 4, was a bit of a low-key affair by Bond standards. We might reasonably have expected Daniel Craig to parachute in while wielding a gun, or at the very least explode through the wall of the studio in she latest souped-up supercar.

What we got, though, was a fairly lacklustre four-and-a-bit minutes of director Sam Mendez revealing the name of the film – Spectre – introducing the main cast, and unveiling the latest Bond car – Aston Martin continues its long relationship with the franchise here, thanks to a specially designed DB10.

Of the main cast, many return from the previous instalment. Daniel Craig continues as secret agent 007; Ralph Fiennes reprises the role of M he took over from Judi Dench at the close of the last movie, Skyfall; Naomie Harris returns as Moneypenny, like wise Ben Whishaw as the new Geeky Q and Rory Kinnear as Tanner. A new member of the Whitehall Team, Denby, will be played by Andrew Scott.

Filling in the vital “Bond Girl” roles will be Italian beauty Monica Belluci and French Actress Lea Seydoux, who will play Lucia Sciarra and Madeleine Swann respectively.

On the presumed baddy side, meanwhile, Guardians of the Galaxy star Dave Bautista will be playing Mr Hinx, widely assumed (by the internet) to be a henchman, while Christoph Waltz will reportedly play a character called Oberhauser.

That's probably the most titillating news from the announcement. The movie, you will recall, is called Spectre. Spectre – the Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion – has been Bond's enemy in numerous previous movies. The current producers only regained the rights to use the name last year following a protracted legal dispute with a former producer, Kevin McClory.

Spectre was, of course, headed up by the seminal Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who has appeared in seven previous Bond movies. Blofeld’s father was Polish, according to Ian Fleming’s novels. Christoph Waltz is Austrian. So we have a central European actor, playing a baddy in a Bond movie named after a seminal Bond baddy organisation headed up by a central European villain. Is Oberhausen a red herring? A character called Oberhauen has appeared in the Bond universe before, but he was our hero’s skiing instructor. Not the most likely source of international villainy you might think. Is Waltz really playing Blofeld?

With principal photography due to start at Pinewood on Monday, and location shooting to come in Morocco, Rome, Mexico City and London, we hopefully won’t have to wait too long for more details to creep out.

Contractually obliged token Star Wars link: Max von Sydow played Blofeld in 1983's semi official Never Say Never Again, which saw Sean Connery return to the role he had left in 1967, then again in 1971 when he was tempted back to appear "one last time" in Diamonds Are Forever.

cnewbould@thenational.ae