Daniel Craig’s James Bond comes back to life

Actor Daniel Craig will appear in a new James Bond movie after the film studio which owns the franchise was saved from bankruptcy. In a scenario that will be familiar to fans of agent 007, the movie was rescued from certain death at the eleventh hour thanks to a debt restructuring deal at MGM.

Shooting of the new film - working title 'Bond 23' - will begin later this year for release in November 2012.

The announcement means that Craig, who has already appeared in the Bond films Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, will be playing the lead role in two simultaneous blockbuster franchises.

The actor has already signed up to play investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist in the Hollywood adaptations of Stieg Larsson's three bestselling Millennium Trilogy books. The first in that series, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is due for release in December.

Craig took on the Larsson project when Bond 23 looked doomed and it was mooted that if the 007 franchise ever got back on track, producer Barbara Broccoli might be looking for a new Bond. That's no longer the case - Craig has the appetite to do both.

British director Sam Mendes is to direct Bond 23. His involvement has led to suggestions that Simon Russell Beale, who Mendes has directed in stage plays on numerous occasions, could be cast as the Bond villain.

Further rumours suggest that in the search for a suitably villainous character, the screenwriters might bring back Bond's arch-enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who was killed off 30 years ago in the pre-title sequence of For Your Eyes Only.

But how seriously would audiences take the character who many younger film fans will recognise as the inspiration for the bumbling villain of the Austin Powers spoofs? ·