UPDATED: Our Skyfall accuracy checklist

With Skyfall coming out in a few months, we thought we’d update our Oct. 30, 2011, post concerning the accuracy of reports over the past 18 months concerning the 23rd James Bond movie.

There are some fans who maintain nothing is official until something is announced. Actually, something like an actor agreeing to play a role is official when he or she has signed a contract (a legal obligation, thus official). An announcement is the end of the process and may not occur (as in the case of our first example below) until well after the actor has completed work.

Also, some of the newspapers that originated these reports don’t have the greatest reputation, including being implicated in the U.K. phone-hacking scandal. As a result, there is reason for fans to be skeptical. Still, many of the reports were eventually proven to be accurate — too many to be attributed to wild guessing. So at least some genuine information has been circulating before formal announcements were made.

Ben Whishaw would be the new Q: Reported by the BBC last year, citing Whishaw’s agent. Formally announced this week. Check. Daniel Craig proclaimed, “Agents are liars,” when asked about reports concerning Whishaw playing Q. Not in this case. Why an official announcement now? One possibility: a new Skyfall trailer was unveiled by Imax at the San Diego comic book convention on July 12. The trailer includes an exchange between Craig’s Bond and Whishaw’s Q.

Skyfall is the title: First reported by the Fusible Web site. Check.

Ralph Fiennes is in the cast: reported by the Daily Mail in February and Variety later. Check.

Albert Finney is in the cast: reported in the Daily Mail on Oct. 28. Check.

Naomie Harris is in the cast: Reported in June 2011 by the now-defunct News of the World. Check.

Berenice Marlohe is the cast: Reported by a Web site called Twitch. Check.

Bond will have a beard during at least part of Skyfall: reported by the Sun newspaper in the U.K. on Oct. 21. Check.

Skyfall will have November 2012 release date: Reported by Nikke Finke’s Deadline entertainment news Web site in late 2010, before the Skyfall title was chosen. Confirmed in news release from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Eon Productions in early 2011. Later release dated tweaked so that U.K. release will be in October 2012, while the November 2012 date still applies to the U.S. Check.

Javier Bardem offered a role in Skyfall: First reported by by the Deadline Web site. Check.

Sam Mendes being considered to direct Skyfall: Reported by the Deadline Web site in January 2010. Check. Mendes denied the news in an article in The Wall Street Journal afterDAYS after his publicist confirmed talks were underway.

There are two major tidbits yet to be confirmed. One concerns the departure of a series character (SPOILER, don’t click if you don’t want to know). The other, an idea pushed by the Daily Mail newspaper in the U.K. is that Naomie Harris’s agent Eve character will eventually turn out to be Miss Moneypenny (CLICK HERE for one of multiple examples).

At this point, both remain to be seen. Given the fact Mendes denied he was in talks to direct Skyfall (while his publicist was saying otherwise) and Craig denied Whishaw was going to play Q (even as Mendes was confirming it), no official statements can be taken at face value at the moment.

Or, to use the words of Eon co-boss Barbara Broccoli, “Nothing has been announced.” But those words, by themselves, don’t mean they’re not true. We’ll just have to see the movie in the fall to be sure.