Does Bond 22 End With A Bout Of Animal Cruelty?

There's a spoiler for the next James Bond ahead, so step cautiously.

According to the Itallian newspaper Il Giornale, there's filming happening this Thursday for the next James Bond film. The shoot is to take place at the famous Palio bareback horse race. Many people claim that this is for the film's climax - personally, however, I'm, not sure. There's no reason to believe this isn't for the opening scenes, or, for that matter, any other part of the film.

The Palio has always been very controversial with animal rights activists, and seemingly endorsing it rather than faking all of the footage in a humane fashion isn't going to win the Bond producers any new fans.

After this early shoot, which is all second unit stuff timed to coincide with the real Palio, it doesn't seem as if the Bond 22 shoot will continue in an unbroken fashion. Daniel Craig is to finish up his commitments elsewhere before spending too long in the famous tux, or even filming his inserts for the Palio sequence.

It's worth noting that the Bond crew are contractually obliged to not use any acts of violence or injury that they catch on film.

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Net yourself a Kite Runner trailer by right-clicking and saving the file as forsterandbenioff.wmv or similar.
You have small, medium and large options, is all.

Movie Minesweeper - The Bishop Edition

- Jon Favreau is making a cameo in Iron Man, and it was the very last shot of the shoot.

- The Darjeeling Limited is the opening night film of the New York Film Festival.

- A Psycho remake TV series? Yep.

- Randal Kleiser is part of a start-up planning to bring 3D images to mobile devices.

- The odds are in favour of a TMNT sequel, if not the quality of a TMNT sequel.

- Nicholas Sparks' Dear John is to be a feature film, adapted by Jamie Linden and with Channing Tatum attached to star. Okay - but what about John Sullivan's Dear John? You can have that one on me, Mrs. H.

- Uwe Boll has called Postal his 'final statement'. So I assume Far Cry and Bloodrayne 2 and 3 and whatever comes afterwards aren't even supposed to be statements at all.

- Kim Jee-Woon's The Good, The Bad, The Weird (missing an 'and' if you ask me) has changed financiers mid-production. The new team are CJ Entertainment, also in preproduction on Chan Wook Park's Evil Live.

- Death of a President's Gabriel Range is writing and will direct what sounds like a sort-of-Somersby, sort-of-Six Degrees of Seperation prodigal son drama.

- Mos Def is to produce and star in Bobby Zero. This one's about a social satirist come advertising copywriter (I wonder if he'll have a comic book gossip column too?). I like Mos Def a lot, and if he's that into this film, then I'm very interested.

- George Hickenlooper's next is to be Morning Spy, Evening Spy, an adaptation of the novel about a CIA operative obsessed with hunting down Osama Bin Laden.

- The Conan option has expired at Warners and it seems that New Line are to pick it up next.

- Starbucks are to hawk Arctic Tale in a return for profit points.

- Megan Fox has signed to appear in How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.

- The Franny K. Stein books are to become animated films.

- Michael Gilvary's spec script Transit has been snapped up by Thousand Words. The premise is simple: a fmaily on a road trip through the desert are hunted by criminals who stashed money in the family's car. Apparently, Gilvary did a recent rewrite on Rendezvous with Rama, which suggests that project might not be as conclusively dead as I had been assuming.

- The inevitable 300 spoof is to be 301: The Legend of Awesomest Maximus Wallace Leonidas, so Gladiator and Braveheart have clearly been tossed into the mix too. Rest assured that Troy is on the hit list also, and I assume a series of completely irrelevent films will be too (Borat again? Pirates of the Caribbean?)

- The Wall Street Journal are cautiously predicting big money success for Ratatouille.

- Cameron Diaz is to star in Richard Kelly's The Box. The film is adapted from Richard Matheson's Button, Button which has already been a Twilight Zone episode (in the 80s comeback series) where Mare Winningham had the role - and the story had been given a more satisfying, less daft ending (if you ask me). I've no idea how Kelly can spin this one out to feature length without making it mightily repetitive.

- Kevin Smith wants unknowns for Red State, which might actually really mean unkowns for once.

- The Hollywood Reporter are only just today covering Pool Rats being set up at Disney, despite the Mouse House registering the appropraite domain name weeks and weeks ago. Sigh.

- Carter Blanchard's spec script Near Death is about.... yep, you guessed it: spooky near death experiences. Fox Searchlight have taken the option.

- Marc Forster is developing, and may direct, Land of Roses. The film will be a drama about Ibrahim Parlak, a real-life Kurdsh Immigrant who campaigned to exonerate a falsely imprisoned terrorist.

- Sid Haig has been confirmed as appearing in the Halloween rehash

- Arthouse Films are to release The Cool School: How Los Angeles Learned to Love Modern Art. Jeff Bridges has narrted the film, which sounds just about perfect.

- The Cloverfield site URL is just redirecting to Paramount's homepage as I write, but any minute now (or hour, or day at least) it is going to go live, probably with a teaser.

- Jonathan Jakubowicz is to direct Queen of the South, all about a female, immigrant drug lord - a prettier Scarface. Apparently, Penelope Cruz, Jennifer Lopez and Eva Mendes are circling the lead role - I'd go for Lopez, personally.

- Arielle Kebble has signed to play one of the titular girls in A Tale of Two Sisters.

Marc Forster Gets The Bond Gig

Nikki Finke has a very brief story revealing Marc Forster has indeed been given the controls for Bond 22.

I'm not happy about this.

Marc Forster Remake 36 To Star Clooney And De Niro?

Production Weekly have put George Clooney in the starring frame for 36, the remake of 36 Quai des Orfevres. Apparently, Marc Forster will be shooting the film, from a Dean Georgaris script, later this year - right when we all though Clooney would be busy (and hopefully still will be) with the Coens and Burn Before Reading. If one of the films is to fall by the wayside, I sincerely hope it's Forster's.

De Niro is set for the other lead role, the other of two cops competing for a promotion. The stars of the original were Gerard Depardieu and Daniel Auteuil and while it hasn't been announced which way round the recast will fall , but I'd expect it to go Depardieu/De Niro and Auteuil/Clooney.