Revealing The Cast, Title, and Car for the 26th James Bond Movie

SPECTRE, otherwise known as the SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion, was perhaps MI6 and James Bond’s greatest threat in the classic Ian Flemming novels. They first appeared in the classic 1961 Bond novel, Thunderball. A year later we would see the terrorist group appear in Sean Connery’s first James Bond film, Dr. No. Lead by the evil mastermind known as Ernst Stavro Blofeld (who has been played by several brilliant actors and parodied by Mike Myers for his Austin Powers films), SPECTRE has wrought damage across the globe and nearly accomplished world domination several times, yet always been stopped by the Agent code named 007. Yet since Daniel Craig was cast as James Bond in 2006, effectively rebooting the series, we have not once seen SPECTRE appear.

Today at a press event held in London’s infamous Pinewood Studios, where many of the great Bond films saw production, director Sam Mendes and executive producer Barbara Broccoli gave us our first details about the 26th James Bond movie. Now this is the 26th James Bond film, have no doubt, but many are counting it as the 24th film. Why? Because this is truthfully the 24th Eon Productions James Bond film, excluding only the classic David Niven parody and the 1983 remake of Thunderball with Connery, known as Never Say Never Again. This is also notably the 4th Daniel Craig James Bond film, or 4th since his reboot. It will be Sam Mendes second James Bond film since he took over directing with Skyfall. The film will be titled Spectre, bringing full circle our little history lesson in the lore of James Bond.

As the title of the movie denotes, we will indeed be seeing the terrorist organization known as SPECTRE in the film, even if Mendes claims he “couldn’t possibly comment”. In fact, the teaser poster (seen just above) even has the old SPECTRE symbol hidden within the cracks of glass caused by a bullet hole. Quite subtle and quite awesome. Yet this will not be the only returns seen for the new Bond film, as much of the production crew and cast from Skyfall will be returning alongside its director, Sam Mendes. John Logan, with the aid of Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, is once more scripting the film and Tom Newman will once more compose the film’s score. Cast wise we obviously see a return as Daniel Craig as Bond, as well as Ralph Fiennes as M, Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q, Rory Kinnear as Bill Tanner, and we’re just getting word that Jesper Christensen will return as Mr. White. Mr. White brings yet another organization of ill-intent into the frame, as Christensen has played a member of the Quantum organization since the reboot. But it is the new additions to the cast sure to cause the greatest interest. First off, as we love Bond Women, we get two big names this round about: Monica Bellucci and Léa Seydoux! Belluci, an infamous Italian model and star from the Matrix films, will be playing Lucia Sciarra. Her competition in the heart, or atleast libido, of Bond will be the French Actress you might recall from Inglorious Basterds and Blue is the Warmest Color, Léa Seydoux, who will be portraying a character named Madeleine Swann. Adding to the friendlies in Whitehall is Sherlock‘s Andrew Scott, playing a very different part than his role as Moriarty, now case as the new character, Denbigh. On the villains end will be Dave Bautista, who apparently quite enjoyed his time in England filming Guardians of the Galaxy, portraying an Oddjob/Jaws like villain in the form of Mr. Hinx. But the films actual antagonist, a role that could find the character at the top of SPECTRE, is another Inglourious Basterds alumni, Christoph Waltz.

Yet just as much as we need to appreciate the cast in each film, particularly the Bond girls, there is another icon in every Bond film: the car. This films car had quite the reveal, with Sam Mendes pulling off the sheet on stage for the unveiling. The car, designed by Aston Martin for this film, is a DB10. It is shown off today commemorating 50 years of Aston Martins in James Bond films (the first being the DB5 in 1964′s Goldfinger), and will only have 10 units created. Check it out below:

Spectre hits theaters October 23rd of next year, 2015, and will begin production next week. The movie will be filmed heavily in Pinewood Studios, with onsite locations happening in Mexico City, Morocco, Sölden, Obertilliach and Lake Altaussee in Austria, and, of course, London. For your chance to see the full presentation at Pinewood Studios, check out the stream from the event below: