Bond 25: Return of old characters, filming locations; new details from Daniel Craig’s final James Bond film emerge

Old characters will return, an icy new location will be visited, and other details from the upcoming 25th James Bond movie - Daniel Craig’s last - have emerged online.

Lea Seydoux’s Dr Madeleine Swann will make a return in Bond 25, currently being written for a tentative 2019 start date under the direction of Cary Joji Fukunaga. She will be joined by returning players Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris, according to a new report by the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye.

Daniel Craig and Lea Seydoux on a poster for Spectre.

These character returns are said to have been approved at the insistence of Daniel Craig, who will also serve as a producer on his final Bond movie. It had previously been reported that creative differences with Craig and the producers had caused original director Danny Boyle to depart the project, thereby delaying its November 2019 release date.

Fukunaga in a recent interview to Philippine Daily Inquirer had said that he was still working on the script - written by Bond veterans Neil Purvis and Robert Wade after Boyle’s screenplay with John Hodge was thrown out. “Now that I have the job, I just keep my head down and try to figure out how to make this as good as possible,” Fukunaga had said, adding “I am trying to get the narrative stuff sorted out and have a good story to tell.”

He remained cagey about the involvement of Christoph Waltz’s villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Waltz had previously said that he would only return if Craig would. For many months, Craig’s involvement in the film was unclear, following his famous comments that he would rather slit his wrists than play Bond again, which he made after the release of Spectre.

The return of older characters keeps in line with Fukunaga’s intention to conclude the story that began in Craig’s first Bond film, 2006’s Casino Royale.

According to Norwegian newspaper Bergens Tidende, a project called B25 has applied for a $8.8 million tax rebate for possibly filming in the country. Mission: Impossible - Fallout was the last major Hollywood film to be shot in Norway. Variety recently reported that Fukunaga had hired Oscar-winning Swedish cinematographer Linus Sandgren to shoot the film. Sandgren, who follows in the footsteps of Roger Deakins (Skyfall) and Hoyte van Hoytema (Spectre), won an Oscar for his work on La La Land, and recently shot Damien Chazelle’s follow-up, First Man.

Earlier rumours had suggested that Dr Swann could return in the film - as Bond’s wife - only to be killed in the first act. It had also been rumoured that Craig wanted Bond to die at the end of the film, which Boyle refused to let happen.

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