Bond 24: The calm before….

It’s a little more than a month before Bond 24 is supposed to start production. Yet, compared to 2011, as Skyfall was gearing up to start principal photography, there’s a bit of a vacuum.

In 2011, some of the major casting had become known: Ralph Fiennes, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw and Berenice Marhloe had all been reported.

For that matter, there were (correct) reports what the title would be. One major plot twist — that Judi Dench’s M was being killed off — was reported IN THE SPRING OF 2011. By this time in 2011, it had also been reported that Harris would be revealed to be the new Miss Moneypenny.

Bond 24? Not nearly as much has come out. The last big Bond 24 scoop was that scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were summoned to do a rewrite of John Logan’s script. Since then, there have been reports about the casting of a secondary Bond woman and some reports about locations.

Even Baz Bamigboye, the Daily Mail scribe who gets a lot of 007 scoops, has been quiet of late.

For a lot of fans, all of this is just fine. They don’t want spoilers. Still, for a movie that’s going to be the followup to a billion-dollar blockbuster, there’s not as much buzz as you might expect.

That will probably change shortly. Still, it’s an oddly quiet time.