Bond 25 gets a cast but no title yet

Daniel Craig in Skyfall.

Eon Productions today introduced the Bond 25 cast during an event in Jamaica today. But the 25th 007 film still lacks a title.

Cast members include Rami Malek, who spoke remotely from New York, where he’s filming Mr. Robot. He also did a separate interview on ABC’s Good Morning America. The actor essentially confirmed he’s the movie’s villain, saying he’ll make life difficult for Daniel Craig’s James Bond.

Also on board are Lea Seydoux, continuing as Madeline Swann. Meanwhile, making a return after more than a decade is Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter. That means he’ll set a record in the Eon series, breaking a tie with David Hedison, who appeared twice as Leiter.

The MI6 “Scooby Gang” (Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear) also will be back in force. To see the other members of the cast, go to Eon’s official 007 Twitter feed.

Barbara Broccoli said during the event that Bond won’t be on active service at the start of the film and “his journey starts here,” referring to Jamaica. No other plot points were discussed.

Listed writers are Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Scott Z. Burns and Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

However, there was no word on Christoph Waltz making a return engagement as Blofeld following SPECTRE. Rodrigo Perez, editor of The Playlist, wrote on Twitter early today that Waltz will be back unless the script was drastically altered. Perez was the scribe who originally broke the story that Scott Z. Burns was rewriting Bond 25’s script.

If you’ve ever attended the media days of a car show, that’s how the event came off. Pretty much people are saying things that have been worked out and reinforce talking points. Director Cary Fukunaga, for example, declared Daniel Craig is his favorite Bond actor.

UPDATE: The MI6 James Bond website, in its story about today’s event, presented a more detailed synopsis than occurred during the presentation. Don’t read ahead if you’re spoiler adverse.

Bond has left active service and is enjoying a tranquil life in Jamaica. His peace is short-lived when his old friend Felix Leiter from the CIA turns up asking for help. The mission to rescue a kidnapped scientist turns out to be far more treacherous than expected, leading Bond onto the trail of a mysterious villain armed with dangerous new technology.

UPDATE II: The James Bond Dossier posts a copy of a Bond 25 press release. It lists director Cary Fukunaga as one of the writers in addition to the four aforementioned scribes. It also contradicts THIS TWEET from Eon’s official 007 Twitter feed, which didn’t mention Fukunaga as a writer. This suggests the final writing credit won’t be settled until after a Writer’s Guild arbitration.