Okay everybody, gird your loins. MGM is unveiling the theatrical trailer for Quantum of Solace -- a.k.a. James Bond 22, if this is your first time on the internet -- at 9 a.m. Pacific on Monday, June 30th. The trailer will be attached to Hancock, which comes out a mere two days later, but you'll be able to see it early over at Moviefone on this page. Of course, we'll let you know as soon as it's up.

I remember that the start of the good buzz on Casino Royale roughly coincided with the release of its terrific teaser trailer -- the one that began in black and white, with a Judi Dench voiceover -- so I trust they're putting a lot of love and effort into this one in the hopes of having another runaway hit on their hands. The project has taken a bit of a beating in the press, what with the on-set tragedies and much-ridiculed title, but I suspect once people see footage, they'll come around. The blogosphere's love affair with Daniel Craig is far from over.

Now, if only they can get this business about the song sorted out. I say they throw caution to the wind and go with Meat Loaf.

I'm just kidding. Or am I?

Maybe it's just me, but is it really a good idea to start promoting a Holocaust drama smack dab in the middle of the summer movie season? I guess you can't blame the makers of Defiance for wanting to start their promotions a little early, though. The new poster for Daniel Craig's WWII flick has been released (click image to enlarge), and it is about as dark and sombre as you might expect.

Defiance was written and directed by Edward Zwick (Blood Diamond), and tells the true life story of the Bielski partisans. The Bielskis were three brothers who escaped into the Belarus forests while on the run from the Nazis and banded together to form a resistance group to save other Jews during WWII. Jamie Bell, Liev Schreiber, and Craig (who is the only face that made it to the poster) portray the three brothers, and The Mist's Alexa Davalos also stars as a fellow escapee and love interest for Craig.

Defiance wrapped production back in 2007 (as we all know, Craig has been a tad busy working on a certain spy film ever since) and there hasn't been much hoopla surrounding the film -- with the exception of a small trailer release back in January. So even though the next three months are all about blockbusting fun, we can't forget that Oscar season is merely months away; I'm sure Zwick hasn't.

Defiance will arrive in theaters on December 19th, 2008.

The producers of the latest Bond movie, Quantum of Solace, may want to just pack it up and give us what they've got, whether or not the thing will make any sense. First they lost an Aston Martin. Then a stuntman was seriously injured during a crash. Then another. Last week, Daniel Craig (aka 007) was treated for a facial injury (requiring stitches). Over the past weekend, there may or may not have been a fire at Pinewood Studios, where the film is currently shooting. And finally (let's hope), on Tuesday, Craig went to the hospital after cutting his hand. Who knows what else will go wrong before principal shooting finishes next weekend? Oh, and there's always a chance that accidents can happen during post-production, too.

According to the BBC, Craig's hand injury was minor enough that he returned to the set Tuesday afternoon, and he only received medical treatment "as a precautionary measure." Other reports claim that he actually sliced off the tip of his finger, which probably sounds worse than it actually is. Regardless of how serious, this incident is being viewed as just the latest evidence that the film is cursed. Some of the stories coming out that I hadn't previously read about include Craig suffering a rib injury in Panama and a technician being stabbed by a woman at a bar in Austria. Wow.

As long as nothing too serious prevents its scheduled release, Quantum of Solace hits theaters November 7.

Brace yourselves for some horrific news from the set of Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond film due in theaters this fall. In a tragic accident early Saturday morning, the film's star plunged into Italy's Lake Garda and was destroyed. No, not Daniel Craig, silly. I mean the real star: the $250,000 Aston Martin DBS that 007 drives.

Yes, this is terrible news, even worse than the news that the movie would be called Quantum of Solace. As a stuntman was delivering the car to the northern Italy set in rainy weather, he lost control of the vehicle on a curve, went through a guard rail, and plummeted into the lake. (That's the recovered vehicle in the picture.) The stuntman, who wasn't named in any of the news reports I found, escaped with just some scratches and bruises; his job experience probably means he knows how to react in an auto-related crisis. It sounds like it would have been a spectacular sequence for a movie, if only there had been cameras rolling.

The reason this is such a big deal is that Aston Martins ain't exactly cheap, nor are they plentiful. It's not like it was a Honda Civic and the producers can just go grab another one off the lot. London's Sunday Mirror says the film had acquired five Aston Martins for the Lake Garda sequence. Two were already sprayed with bullet holes (on purpose), and it was the third one that went into the lake. The filmmakers presumably had other intentions for the remaining two cars; no word yet on whether they'll have to adjust their plans, or whether they'll be able to make do. Obtaining a replacement car on short notice doesn't appear to be an option.

USA Today has a piece up today about 16 "hot" movies to watch for in 2008. Here's the list:

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Sex and the City: The Movie
The Dark Knight
Mamma Mia!
The X-Files
Quantum of Solace (aka the New James Bond Flick)
Star Trek
Iron Man
Speed Racer
The Incredible Hulk
Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D
The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Madagascar: The Crate Escape
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
The Day the Earth Stood Still

I think I'm ready to give up trying to figure out what's going on with this movie -- I'll just wait till November and judge it then. But here's the latest intangible -- Bollywood actress and British tabloid staple Shilpa Shetty has just joined the cast of Quantum of Solace in an as-yet undetermined role, along with moderately well-known supporting actor David Harbour, whose role is also undetermined. Although it's being touted by MI6, the source of this information appears to be that Harbour and Shetty's names both popped up on IMDB over the weekend, so I would wait for EON confirmation next week before this becomes really, really official. IMDB does have a name for her character, though -- Devi. This late casting of Shetty is a curiosity, since she was considered a prime candidate for a Bond girl during the initial casting phase, and the Bond producers were known to be interested in working a Bollywood favorite into the film to take advantage of the synchronous orbit of Bollywood and British cinema.

Surely they don't have room for three Bond girls, do they? Shetty is very popular in Britain and recently got worldwide press attention for a mini-scandal involving Richard Gere, so I think it's more than likely that this role will amount to a cameo, like Madonna in Die Another Day or like British actress Christina Cole's role as "Ocean Club Receptionist" in Casino Royale. Remember that little scene where Bond checks into the Ocean Club and has a momentary flirtation with a stop-you-in-your-tracks-gorgeous blonde behind the front desk? I'm thinking they invited Shetty to do one of those parts and she agreed, perhaps after quietly losing out on getting one of the main Bond girl parts. But what do I know -- I thought Arterton was Moneypenny. Meanwhile, filming continues to roll on, and more confusion is sure to follow.

British jazz singer Amy Winehouse, who is known internationally more for her drug problems and wild antics -- in my five seconds of research, I see that she apparently heckled Bono while he was giving a speech, which makes me think she's good people -- has reportedly been offered the chance to sing the theme song for the new James Bond film. If British rag The Sun is to be believed, the producers of Quantum of Solace have gotten themselves involved in Winehouse's personal drama by offering the singer the theme song on the condition that she get herself clean and sober by April. "That's when the Bond people make a final decision on who sings the theme," the source said. "If Amy is clean then, it's hers." I don't know who this source is -- craft services guy, maybe -- but I also wouldn't put it past the crafty Bond producers to try to stir the media into a frenzy by putting Winehouse on the payroll in such a manner. For his part, Daniel Craig has already commented on this whole drama, saying "It's just way, way off that. Everyone's speculating about it but we've got other things to deal with -- there's no point in writing the song for a movie when we haven't got a movie." Yikes.

In other Bond news, there isn't any, really, but Craig did get into another tiff with journalists over his reputation for being difficult when it comes to press, which I didn't know he had. I met Craig during the junket for Casino Royale and found him to be as warm and as forthcoming as you could expect. On that so-called reputation, Craig says "I don't think it's true, it's just lazy journalism; they want to paint me as someone difficult. I think I'm quite nice, but maybe I'm delusional. There's no point in doing Bond if you're not going to sell it."

[via MI6]

Shortly after I first saw Casino Royale, someone asked me what I thought about it and I blurted out "B-." How could I, a Bond fan, give the movie such a low rating, they wanted to know, to which I replied that it seemed more like a movie-movie than a Bond movie and it should have gone further in its realism, and been R-rated. "If they had made this as a sort of R-rated version of Majesty's Secret Service, it might have actually been a great film," I said at the time. All of this is a long-winded way of leading up to mentioning that Daniel Craig is apparently keen on executing an explicit nude scene in Quantum of Solace, according to reports, which would seem to necessitate an R-rating this time around. Access Hollywood recently asked Jeffrey Wright about the rumors that Craig was trying to work some full-frontal into the movie this time around, to which he replied "The world is ready for anything, but I'm not licensed to reveal that." He also conceded that the title of the film was "pretty exotic."

Meanwhile, for those of you who have completely given up on trying to remain spoiler-free, there are now many details of a key car chase that will occur in the film. The Italian press has been all over this one, with an Italian Bond fansite detailing that the chase will take place along the banks of Lake Garda, between the resort towns of Navene and Malcesine and that the cars are expected to top speeds of 125 mph. According to them "the pursuit will feature spectacular and reckless maneuvers in a series of tunnels, culminating with a scene where a truck brings the action to an abrupt halt and a huge explosion." I don't know about you, but hearing that makes me immediately depressed because I have zero confidence that Marc Forster can pull it off. I mean, really, this is the guy who couldn't even make kite-flying seem realistic.

Finally, thanks to some advance toy marketing, we know that there will be a character in this film known as 'Elvis.' There's no confirmation on who this character is supposed to be, but since he's prominent enough to be toy-worthy, expect yet another casting announcement soon.

[Via MI6]

Is Gemma Arterton feeling the heat for having recently (apparently) blurted out a key plot point involving her character in Quantum of Solace? Seems that way. "You have to work out what you can say and cannot say," Arterton tells Reuters in a recent article. "It's quite hard for me who has a bit of a motor mouth. I've been learning for the last six months to think before I speak." As she continues to work on her problem, Arterton also continues to give away more plot details for the upcoming film, intimating in the same Reuters piece that oil -- "a lot of oil" -- is what the villains are after this time, and South America is apparently where they're looking for it. Arterton also tells IGN in another new interview that her character does become sexually involved with Bond -- there's a kiss, at least -- and that something happens to her in a "scene which is an homage to something iconic, but I cannot tell you what that is. But it will be remembered."

What is she talking about? Let's speculate. Given what Arterton has already let slip about her character's destiny and given that in this IGN interview she mentions Diana Rigg more than once -- noting her as one of her favorite Bond girls and saying "my hair is reminiscent of Diana Rigg's hair" the most obvious answer is that perhaps the "homage scene" is a climactic one for her and is something similar to the climactic scene in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. That would fit in with everything she's saying, but it wouldn't seemingly fit in with Bond's journey at this point, since it would be so similar to the ending of Casino Royale. Although, it might work if Arterton's Agent Fields is only a minor character, which she appears to be. A minor character could be resolved in such a way. Gemma, you're making my head hurt!

Yes, I know what the actual title of this film is, but I think it's so eye-poppingly awful that there's a very good chance it will be changed at some point before release, so I see no need to mention it now. We're talking about a film that has to be marketed internationally -- surely cooler heads at Sony will step in and demand a title that's reasonable? What was their second choice, by the way? James Bond in Footpounds of Complacency? Either way, someone needs to start minding the store over there because now the actors are going around giving away major plot details. It's not often that I have to issue a spoiler warning over something an actor said while out promoting their film, but consider this that spoiler warning and beware. Speaking to BBC Newsround, Gemma Arterton, who I had incorrectly figured for a Moneypenny early on, says that her character, an MI6 agent named Fields, is tasked with trying to "keep Bond under control" in Bolivia, but for her trouble the character "sort of comes to a sticky end." Thanks, Gemma.

Meanwhile, Mathieu Amalric is also talking up his character, the main villain, and says (another spoiler alert) that he's going to get into physical training for a big fight scene with Bond that will come at the end the picture. Is Bond in the habit of engaging in fisticuffs with his main adversaries? Not really. Anyway, that's also much more than I wanted to know, since for all we know this guy could have exited halfway through, like Le Chiffre. Based on the flurry of details that have emerged in the last week, I already think I have a good handle on exactly what will happen in this film, structure-wise, and that's too much info. In other, less spoiler-filled news, Detroit News is also running a piece on the set design for the film, and informs us that a massive MI6 set -- "a two-story suite of steel-gray furniture and frosted glass offices" -- will be featured this time around.

[Via MI6]