Sep 13, 2010

Tradecraft: Johnny English Lands A Bond Girl

Decades after being humiliated by 007 and laughed at by Domino, Nigel Small-Fawcett has finally landed a Bond Girl of his own!  The Hollywood Reporter reports that Die Another Day's Miranda Frost herself, Rosamund Pike, has joined Rowan Atkinson in the highly-anticipated (well, by me, anyway) spy spoof sequel Johnny English Reborn.  Also coming aboard is The Wire's Dominic West. The pair join the previously announced Atkinson, Gillian Anderson and Daniel Kaluuya. There's still no mention, unfortunately, of Ben Miller, whose long-suffering Bough (Johnny's assistant) was the funniest character in the first film.  I really do hope there's a place for him in the sequel's script, penned by Hamish McColl and William Davies. (Davies co-wrote the first film with regular Bond scribes Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who are also sadly not involved with the sequel.)  I'm afraid that he's been replaced by Kaluuya, though.  The trade also offers the first glimpse I've yet seen of the sequel's storyline, revealing that Johnny "finds himself embroiled in trying to stop a plot by a group of international assassins hunting down the Chinese premier." Sounds like a lot of potential for OSS 117-style laughs...

The Hollywood Reporter also reports that "the movie shoots for 13 weeks in the U.K. and Hong Kong beginning this week."

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