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Quantum of Solace Set Visit

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The announcement of a new Bond film is traditionally greeted with a mixture of enthusiasm and anticipation, but when that film is the sequel to Casino Royale, the brilliant franchise re-boot that is now the most successful film in the history of the series, that excitement reaches a fever pitch.

The film has only been shooting at the U.K.'s Pinewood Studios for the last three weeks, but yesterday IGN got to experience the glitz and glamour of a Bond shoot up close on the first official set visit. As it's so early in production, the cast and crew were understandably tight-lipped regarding action and plot, but as we spoke to all the major players throughout the day, a clearer picture of Bond 22 started to take shape.

To kick off, the filmmakers screened a "b-roll" -- early footage they already have in the can. This consisted of Daniel Craig's Bond walking into the reception of the brand new MI6 building (more on that later) and asking about a call from Cairo. Next was a shot of Bond talking to M in the midst of a snow storm. The conversation looks to be a tense one, and Dame Judi Dench backed this up, stating that there is much more of her and Bond's "prickly relationship" this time around.

The final scene was an action sequence involving Bond swinging from a rope in what looks to be an art gallery. Indeed, it turned out to be just that when we were whisked onto the 007 stage to inspect the set for ourselves. The scene in question apparently takes place in a gallery in Sienna, Italy, and dressed with scaffolding and ropes (plus a huge blue screen for visual effects at a later date), it looks to be just the kind of space Bond would make good use of in a chase.

Our suspicions seem to be confirmed when we leave the gallery and are directed into a series of tunnels leading through Sienna's sewer system. Again perfect for a chase, the maze-like corridors lead to a dark and cavernous room that is doubling for an MI6 safe-house, though the identity of those hidden there unfortunately remains a mystery.

We then returned to base for the unveiling of the Bond 22 title. As you doubtless know by now, Quantum of Solace is the new moniker, and to be honest, it had the journalists present scratching their heads in confusion. Trying to make sense of it, Craig had this to say on the subject: "It's from an Ian Fleming short story. It's quite a moving story for Ian Fleming really – it debates relationships and how they hurt. I think it comes from the way he was feeling in his personal life at the time. What he suggests is that if you don't have that quantum of solace in your relationship, you should give up. It's that level of comfort or niceness or whatever the right word is. If you're not respecting each other, it's over. And Bond doesn't have that. At the end of the last movie he doesn't have that, because the love of his life was taken away from him."

There then followed a press conference with director Marc Forster, Dench and producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Brocoli. First up, Wilson revealed that the film will be a direct sequel to its predecessor, with the action starting approximately one hour after Casino Royale has finished.

The conversation then turned to which elements of the mythology the filmmakers will be bringing back to the franchise, and while the Aston Martin is making a welcome return as Bond's car of choice, franchise stalwarts Q and Miss Moneypenny have again failed to make the cut. Traditionalists need not despair, however, as Wilson added, "We don't have those characters in this film, but we're still open to when they'll come back into the series."

Elsewhere we learned that Quantum of Solace will shoot in Panama, Peru, Chile, Italy, Austria and London; M will play a much larger role in this film; and QoS will have much more action than Casino Royale, with Wilson claiming that it might even have twice as much. It also has a larger budget than its predecessor, though no one would be drawn on the exact amount.

We were then whisked away to another stage where M's new and improved MI6 building is housed. This is a truly amazing set – replacing the stuffy and rather downbeat office of old is a sleek, stylish, almost futuristic construction. A forensic technologies lab with a high-tech touch-screen computer system allows MI6 to track the whereabouts of everyone they have under surveillance, and the day's action apparently revolves around M and her assistant Tanner discussing where Bond is and what he's up to.

With that we returned to base to spend the rest of the day interviewing the villain, played by Matthieu Amalric and Bond girls Gemma Arterton and Olga Kurylenko (we'll be showing them on IGN next week). For now however, here's what Bond himself had to say about the Quantum of Solace.

Who was the first person to suggest the title?

Daniel Craig: It's been going around for a while, we've been discussing it quite a while. We could have found a nippy title – we had plenty of suggestions that would look good on the poster. But we made a lot of effort last time around to take the film to a new place, and we want to continue to do that. So this title is meant to confuse a little. It's meant to make you wonder, and that's what we want – we want people thinking as they come into the film. When we first came up with the title I wasn't sure, but I've been re-reading the Fleming books, which I do when we start shooting because it passes the time. Fleming always has a very emotional line to his books, and that's where we kind of left the last movie. It doesn't mean that this movie is going to be some character-driven kitchen sink drama – we're making a Bond movie – and Quantum of Solace ties in with a very strong plot point, which I'm not going to give away at this point.

So given that should we expect an even more introspective Bond from this film?

Craig: No. There's revenge. There's a fight within him. There's a need to do his job and to solve this riddle that's been given to him, because basically everything he understood about the world has been turned upside down. All this points towards a bad organisation that's trying to undermine the world's economies by trying to control money around the world in a very secretive way; and he's after them.

Did the success of the last film surprise you?

Craig: It surprised me in the sense that I've never been in a situation like that before, so how could I have a benchmark to go on? So it was either going to work or it wasn't going to work, and if it worked we'd make another one and if it didn't, I'd try something else. But we were sitting in a bar in Switzerland and the figures started coming in and we knew at that point that it was a success. It then just continued to go up and up and that's where the surprise came.

Given that success, how much pressure do you feel this time around?

Craig: As much as before, if not a little more, because we had a major success and people reacted beyond how we thought they would. We always knew we had a great movie, but who knew that people would respond the way they did. My feeling is that we owe it to the people who saw the last movie to give them something better.

If the last film re-invigorated the franchise, where do you go from there?

Craig: We make a great movie. Simple as that.

Are there any action sequences or stunts that you are nervous about on this film?

Craig: I think I cracked most of my demons last time. We're doing things that you won't have seen from Bond before. We're always going to be pushing the envelope. Special effects are going to play a part in this movie, but they are going to be as they were before – about the plot. We're not re-creating cities here, we're going to locations. I'm pushing myself as hard as I can. But I'm not going to admit to you if I'm nervous or not!

You've got a plaster on your thumb – is that a stunt injury?

Craig: Might be. It's not a very impressive one is it? I got it doing rope work. I've got others, but I can't show you them.

How did you prepare physically this time around then?

Craig: I trained very differently this time around. Last time I bulked up and got big to make him look like someone who literally just dropped out of the Navy and was Special Services. But I needed to get fitter in a different way because I'm doing an awful lot of physical activity. I've got to get myself, and I don't want to use these words because it sounds awful, but cardio-vascularly fit. I need to last the course on this. We're doing six-day weeks at the moment, and I'm doing dialogue scenes on this stage and as soon as I finish I change costumes and run up to the 007 stage and I'm swinging from ropes. So I have to keep myself in as best shape as I can because I've got to do this for six months.

Are you enjoying working opposite your new Bond girl Gemma Arterton?

Craig: It's great – she's a rising star and we're very lucky to get her now because she's on her way up. We've shot quite a lot of stuff with her already – she's got a great part in the film.

Any chance you'll wear the Casino Royale swimming trunks in this one?

Craig: I'm not going to put those trunks on ever again!

Why not?

Craig: No reason. But there will be a certain amount of nudity in this movie I'm sure.

Do you think these films are becoming too violent to be deemed family entertainment?

Craig: I think that's a big question really. With the violence in the last movie it was very important that we showed the consequences of it. We took it on very responsibly – glamourising violence is wrong, and we're taking that onto this movie. Look at From Russia With Love though – it's no more violent than that. We take it very seriously, but it's James Bond – they are violent films about violent people. That's what the stories are about.

How many Bond films would you like to make?

Craig: As long as they are working, I'll keep on making them.

Quantum of Solace is released worldwide on November 7, and we'll post more interviews from the set throughout next week.