First Look at 007 in Action in SPECTRE

What an exciting week for spy fans! Hot on the heels of the awesome Man From U.N.C.L.E. trailer comes our first look at Daniel Craig in action as James Bond in Sam Mendes' SPECTRE, courtesy of 007.com. The first official still of Craig in the 24th official 007 movie shows the actor in winter gear clutching a pistol (not a Walther PPK) in a snowy Alpine setting with snowmobiles and off-road vehicles in the background. The shot is reminiscent of the famous still of George Lazenby in the Alps with a Sterling submachine gun, and the background elements seem the perfect ingredients for a classic James Bond action sequence—the creation of which is confirmed in the first official behind the scenes video from the set! I'm particularly excited to see Craig in the snow, because cold weather setpieces tend to be among my favorite in the Bond canon, but we haven't had a great one since The Living Daylights back in 1987. (I'm sorry, but the lackluster ski sequence in The World Is Not Enough just didn't cut it for me.) That's more than 25 years—or more than half the duration of the series! So it's about time for another great winter setpiece in a Bond flick. Check out the video below for a spoiler-free hint of how things will go down in this Austrian sequence. Now with Bond and U.N.C.L.E. videos this week, all we need is for Paramount to offer a first look at the next Mission: Impossible!


NOTE: While the plot of SPECTRE was leaked in the Sony hack, not all Bond fans want to know what's going to happen. So please be courteous and refrain from posting SPECTRE spoilers in the comments section.

Another Cool Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol Location Revealed
Filming Wraps In Dubai After Shoot At Indoor Desert Ski Resort

In a special issue last week about filming in the Middle East (print edition only, I think), it was mentioned that besides the much-publicized stunt atop the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (or M:I-4 to those who don't speak Ludlumese) team was also shooting at a massive indoor ski slope in the desert pleasure dome of Dubai.  There were no details or pictures, but the tidbit was intriguing enough for me to research the location a bit further.  And it sounds like an amazing setting for a spy movie!  (Dozens of Eurospy directors are turning in their graves right now regretting that this place didn't exist in the Sixties.) Ski Dubai is more than an oasis; it's eternal winter right in the middle of perpetual summer.  According to its official website, "Ski Dubai is the first indoor ski resort in the Middle East and offers an amazing snow setting to enjoy skiing, snowboarding and tobogganing or just playing in the snow. The construction covers an amazing 22,500 square meters covered with real snow all year round."  There are chairlifts and everything.  I love the decadance! 

The trade doesn't mention whether it was Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Josh Holloway or any of the movie's many other stars who filmed at this snowy location.  Renner recently confirmed the rampant speculation that he was being groomed to take over the franchise from Tom Cruise to the MTV Movies Blog (via The Hollywood Reporter). "It's a franchise to potentially take over," the actor told MTV. "I can't predict the future and what they want, but that's certainly the idea." He was quick to give due credit to Cruise, adding that he remains the guiding hand behind the film franchise. "It's Tom's baby. He's the engine behind the thing. What happens after that, we'll see."

Rounding out this Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol news roundup, today's LA Times reports that filming wrapped in Dubai earlier this week, so whatever was going on at that awesome indoor ski slope is all done now. The fourth film in the series based on the classic TV show opens December 16, 2011, taking advantage of the delay of the next James Bond movie by honing in on the season 007 has traditionally staked out for the last fifteen years.