More about Bond 23 delay

The Express newspaper in the U.K. ran a short item about the delay in Bond 23. Some excerpts:

Pre-production has been halted and filming postponed while the future of the Bond franchise hangs in the balance.

Michael G Wilson, who produces the Bond films with Barbara Broccoli, admitted: “We just don’t know enough about the situation to comment but we know it’s uncertain.”

The earliest a new film is likely to go into production is at the end of this year, for release in 2011, a full three years after the last Bond, Quantum Of Solace.

The reason cited, not surprisingly, is the possible sale of MGM, which owns 50 percent of the Bond franchise. The article doesn’t reveal much more but Wilson’s comment is one of the few we’ve seen to address the sitution directly.

To read the complete article just CLICK HERE. Also, to view the version of the story on the Commander Bond Web site (where we first saw it), just CLICK RIGHT HERE.

UPDATE: To view a longer article on this same subject on the MI6 Web site, just CLICK HERE.

1967: Tom and Jerry exploit the spy craze

In the 1960s, it seemed like everybody wanted to exploit the spy craze — even Tom and Jerry.

The cartoon cat and mouse made their debut in a 1940 MGM theatrical cartoon, Puss Gets the Boot. The featurette marked the first collaboration of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and the duo would concentrate their efforts on Tom and Jerry for the next 15 years, until they took over control of MGM’s cartoon department at the end of 1955. They still directed Tom and Jerry shorts until MGM shut down the department in 1957. MGM later thought better of the move and hired contractors to do cartoons but Hanna and Babera moved on, starting their own company in 1957 to make cartoons for television.

MGM ended up hiring acclaimed cartoon director Chuck Jones to do a new series of Tom and Jerry shorts in the 1960s. By tht time, spies were a big deal in movies. So Jones & Co. in 1967 made The Mouse From H.U.N.G.E.R., a takeoff on MGM’s The Man From U.N.C.L.E. television series in which agent Jerry-akin tries to steal a refrigerator full of cheese from villain Tom Thrush.

Here it is. For this cartoon, Jones was producer only, leaving the directing chores to Abe Levitow.