Bond is back — and he wants revenge.
Producers have revealed some of the secrets about the latest James Bond film, due for release later this year, including the inner turmoil that drives its suave superagent hero and its title: “Quantum of Solace.”
As titles go, it’s not as mellifluous as “From Russia With Love” or “Goldfinger.” But Daniel Craig, returning as Bond after 2006’s “Casino Royale,” says he likes it.
“It has grown on me,” Craig told reporters on the film’s set at Pinewood Studios near London on Thursday. “It doesn’t trip off the tongue. But why should it?”
Producer Michael G. Wilson said the title, chosen only a few days ago, was taken from a story by Bond creator Ian Fleming that appears in the collection “For Your Eyes Only.”
Craig said Fleming defined a quantum of solace — it means, roughly, a measure of comfort — as “that spark of niceness in a relationship that if you don’t have, you might as well give up.”
Several reporters at the press launch questioned whether the filmmakers should have opted for a snappier title. A blogger for the Guardian newspaper was already asking whether it was the “worst Bond title ever?”
Craig defended the name. “At the end of the last movie his heart’s been broken and he doesn’t have that quantum of solace, he doesn’t have that ... closure on what happened in his life and he needs to find out,” he told Reuters in an interview.
“What is great about it is it also applies to something very important in the plot,” he said during a break from filming.
‘Revenge in his heart’Filming began earlier this month at Pinewood, the franchise’s home since the 1960s. It’s a direct sequel to 2006’s “Casino Royale,” beginning an hour after that film ends, with Bond devastated by his betrayal by true love Vesper Lynd.
“He had his heart broken at the end of the last movie and that certainly is a spur for him in this one,” Craig said.
“I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t revenge in his heart. But it’s more than that. That spurs him on, but that’s not what the movie is. It’s not a revenge movie. It’s about him figuring a few things out.”
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Producer Barbara Broccoli said the film, directed by Marc Forster (“Monster’s Ball,” “The Kite Runner”), mixes Bond’s “inner turmoil” with action — and of course gadgets — as he tries to stop a shadowy cabal trying to bring down the world economy.
Craig’s second Bond adventure continues in the gritty vein of “Casino Royale,” in which a rough-edged 007, newly granted his “license to kill,” bled, sweat and felt real emotion. But Wilson promised it also has “twice as much action” as its predecessor.
“It’s pretty jam-packed,” he said.
Villainy from withinMathieu Amalric is a new addition as villain Dominic Greene. But the French actor, star of the Oscar-nominated “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” won’t be sporting a trademark tic like many of his predecessors.
He and Forster decided his villainy should come from within.
“That’s maybe what is horrible about today,” Amalric said. “We can’t guess who the villains are. The villains are invisible.”
Amalric said he modeled his character to some extent on former Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
“I’ve been taking details, the smile of Tony Blair, the craziness of Sarkozy, he’s the worst villain we’ve ever had,” he said.
Bond may find solace — producers are coy — in the arms of two Bond Girls — Ukrainian Olga Kurylenko as a feisty Bolivian named Camille and Gemma Arterton as an MI6 agent named Fields.
“In the movie, he is obviously still attached to his past,” said Kurylenko. “The appearance of this new girl might divert him. Or, it might not.”
Craig, who overcame public skepticism — a blond Bond? — to win rave reviews for “Casino Royale,” said he still felt nervous about the role.
“All the fear I felt before is still there,” he said.
“This is a $200 million movie, and it’s James Bond. We have to make it great.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.