Dark Knight to rise for next James Bond? Christopher Nolan approached to direct next 007 film



Wanted: Christopher Nolan has been approached to direct the next 007 movie

Christopher Nolan has been approached to direct the next 007 movie.



It’s early days, but informal talks have begun between Nolan, his representatives and the powers behind the James Bond pictures, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G .Wilson.

Nolan, who made the Batman trilogy Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises — and had time for Inception in between — would be a cool choice after Sam Mendes decided not to shoot Bond 24.

Following the amazing box-office and critical success of Skyfall, Mendes was close to saying ‘yes’ to the next instalment, but had to withdraw because of his theatre commitments Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and King Lear with Simon Russell Beale at the National Theatre.

Also, a lot of unconfirmed chatter has started about Mendes running the National Theatre once Sir Nicholas Hytner steps down in March 2015 after a glorious decade at the helm of the theatrical powerhouse on the South Bank.



There are all sorts of reasons why Nolan might not want to do the next Bond film, though he is known to be an admirer of Bond star Daniel Craig.



For starters, he’s in pre-production of his own next big film, Interstellar, with Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, and he might prefer not to go straight from one huge production into another.

But as one of my Bond experts commented: ‘It does no harm for Broccoli and Wilson to talk with Nolan, even if nothing happens this time round.’

Mendes told me that there would be at least a year to 18 months of pre-production preparation and then six months of filming involved in Bond 24, and the producers want to shoot the follow-up soon after.

Star: Daniel Craig is pictured as James Bond in Skyfall

That would be a heavy workload for anyone.

But it would be fascinating to see a film-maker of Nolan’s standing build on what Mendes and the 007 gang has already done with Bond.

Carey on Screening! Carey Mulligan shines at Cannes





Happy: Carey Mulligan attends The Great Gatsby photocall during the 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival

Carey Mulligan is the belle of the Cannes Film Festival.

She has two movies here: she plays Daisy in Baz Luhrmann’s controversial The Great Gatsby and she’s a folk singer in Ethan and Joel Coen’s sublime picture Inside Llewyn Davis, which has its official world premiere in Cannes on Sunday night.

The Coen movie stars Oscar Isaac, Justin Timberlake and John Goodman.

Also, celebrated director Thomas Vinterberg confirmed to me that Carey will play Bathsheba Everdene in a new screen version of Thomas Hardy’s Far From The Madding Crowd, which will start filming mid-September in Britain.

‘She’s my Bathsheba,’ Vinterberg said, as he pointed out Carey who was seated with her husband Marcus Mumford at the Electrolux Diner d’Ouverture, which followed the gala screening of The Great Gatsby.

Vinterberg, president of the jury for the Un Certain Regard section of the film festival, said he was ‘fascinated’ by Hardy’s complex heroine. He is also aware that some people are a little wary of British costume dramas and added: ‘I’m hoping to avoid my film being perceived as dusty.’

Casting for the film, being produced by a consortium that includes DNA Films, Fox Searchlight and BBC Films, continues, though Vinterberg let slip that Belgian actor Matthias Schoenaerts has been cast as Gabriel Oak, one of Bathsheba’s three suitors.

Every leading lady wants Schoenaerts to hold her in his strong arms. When we were in New York recently, Carey told me she couldn’t wait to work with him. ‘He’s the real deal, so charismatic,’ she said.

The 35-year-old actor is working opposite Kate Winslet in Alan Rickman’s film A Little Chaos.

He then goes directly to the set of Saul Dibbs’s film of Suite Francaise.

For Carey, working on Far From The Madding Crowd will mark the first time in more than a year that she has stepped in front of a feature film camera. The last time was for The Great Gatsby (which I like a lot third time round) in Sydney.

‘I got married and took a little time off which was really strange,’ said Carey.

‘When I first started acting I used to get so nervous. If I didn’t know what my next job was, I’d call my agent every day and ask why I wasn’t working. I must have been a complete nightmare.

‘It wasn’t about the money because I could live just fine on what I made from TV work, but it was about the experience.

‘I just wanted to learn and felt that if I wasn’t working then I wasn’t learning.

‘I’m not so manic about it now — but I’m still learning.’

Director Philip Saville has come up with an intriguing way to spice up marriages.

He has developed a feature film called Ideal Wife in which an estranged husband, played by Andrew Lee-Potts, orders a gift for himself — and it comes packaged in the shape of Shee (Camilla Arfwedson below right).

His wife, played by Jeany Spark, isn’t too happy about it when she returns to the marital home and finds Shee.

I can tell you no more than that because Saville, who worked extensively in TV and made the feature film Metroland, has so far completed just one-third of Ideal Wife.



He and his wife Nina, who produced it, are hoping to interest investors to help them complete the project as a film or a three-part TV series.



It’s a fascinating drama and I can’t wait to see the complete version.

Tom Hanks is in discussions about transferring the hit Broadway play Lucky Guy to London. If it does go ahead — and it’s a big if — it won’t happen until late spring 2014, for a limited season.



The play, written by the late Nora Ephron, has just turned a profit in New York. Hanks, without vanity, portrays newspaper columnist Mike McAlary, who was a big byline in the Eighties.



As directed by George C. Wolfe, the play probes the murky side of U.S. tabloid journalism, a topic that resonates here, too.

If Hanks agrees to go to the West End, it will be one of the major theatrical events of next year.







