Bond 23: everybody’s talking except for Eon and Sam Mendes

All of a sudden, lots of people are talking about Bond 23, except for the people who’d actually supervise the making of the film: the co-boss folks of Eon Productions, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli.

Exhibit A: David Arnold, composer of five 007 films, says in an interview on Comingsoon.net that Bond 23 is starting to gear up. Arnold told the Web site that, “We only just got the news that we’re back on. But ‘there’s many a slip twixt cup and lip’ So I will keep quiet until I get a script and then start writing ideas.’

Exhibit B: Actress Kate Winslet, in an interview with the U.K.’s Daily Mail newspaper, said she’s moving to London for a period so she and her children can be close to her estranged husband, director Sam Mendes, the presumed director of Bond 23.

Sam is doing the next Bond film, all being well, and we’ll all be in England if that happens. It’s such a massive commitment for him and it’s not fair for him to commute backwards and ­forwards to New York from ­London. It would be impossible. The children will be there with me,’ Kate told me (the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye) exclusively.

Exhibit C: Peter Morgan, who earlier disclosed this year he never got around to actually writing a Bond 23 script after a few months on the project.

Let’s recap: MGM said in bankrutpcy court filings it wants Bond 23 to come out in November 2012 and future 007 films to come out on an every-other-year schedule. One Eon contract employee (Arnold) says Bond 23 is back on, though he hasn’t gotten a script yet. And the soon-to-be-ex-wife of the man reported to be Bond 23’s director says she’s moving herself and the kids so the would-be director can visit his children on a regular basis while Bond 23 is being filmed.

Still silent: Wilson and Broccoli (but that’s no surprise because they rarely talk to the press except when it’s time to promote a Bond movie) and Mendes, who’s never said himself that he’s going to be the director. Stay tuned, there’s probably more Bond 23 nonsense ahead. Once MGM actually gets out of bankrutpcy court (its reorganization plan having already been approved by the court), things will probably start popping.

UPDATE: The Deadline Web site run by Nikki Finke has gotten into the act WITH A BREATHLESSLY WORDED POST BY TIM ADLER. It starts thusly:

There’s still no official word. But I’m hearing from 007 insiders that production should start on the next James Bond movie — “Bond 23” — towards the end of next year for release November 2012.

Deadline’s report might seem more substantial if a) MGM hadn’t already laid out the November 2012 in bankruptcy court; b) David Arnold hadn’t already said the same thing *publicly in an on-the-record interview*; and c) Kate Winslet hadn’t already spilled the beans, also in an on-the-record interview.

By the way, insiders tell us the sun will rise in the East tomorrow.