Worn by Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, actor Gary Cooper, and US property magnate Donald Trump, Italian label Brioni takes the crown when it comes to prestige in men's style, according to a US survey.
Brioni was rated the most prestigious luxury men's fashion brand by a narrow margin in the 2007 Luxury Brand Status Index survey from the independent New York-based Luxury Institute.

The privately-owned company Brioni Roman Style, founded in Rome in 1945, boasts that its suits take at least 18 hours of work and are hand-stitched. Customers can choose from more than 5,000 difference fabrics.

Ready-to-wear Brioni suits can start from about $4,000 and are sold through Brioni stores as well as upmarket retailers internationally while custom-tailored suits can carry a price tag of around $20,000.

Bond star Daniel Craig told reporters at the Cannes Film Festival that he had let himself go a little since putting himself through a tough fitness regimen for Casino Royale.

"I had some down time," Craig said. "I got to enjoy myself a bit. I'm getting back into shape now, I'm kind of building myself up again."

Craig, 39, said the script had not been finalised for the next Bond film, which does not yet have a title. The last 007 film was "very successful," Craig said. "We have to make the next one, I think, better than the last one to keep people happy."

Craig was in Cannes for a preview of The Golden Compass, a fantasy adventure that also stars Nicole Kidman. It will hit screens worldwide in December.

The movie, announced at the Cannes Film Festival in France, also features British stars Helen McCrory, Olivia Williams and Emilia Fox.

Daniel Craig has signed up to play a washed-up British Hollywood actor. The hunky star, who won rave reviews for his turn as James Bond in Casino Royale, has been cast in Flashbacks Of A Fool.

The movie, announced at the Cannes Film Festival in France, also features British stars Helen McCrory, Olivia Williams and Emilia Fox.

Daniel plays a star in his 40s whose allure is starting to fade. He comes back to Britain for a funeral following the death of his best friend from his childhood in the English seaside. The experience sparks flashbacks of his younger years, and of a tragedy which forced him to look for a new life in the US.

Filming begins on the movie, directed by Baillie Walsh, later this month in South Africa and London.

Screen Daily.com reports that the film tells the true story of four Polish brothers who join forces with a group of Russian resistance fighters.

The film will be directed by Edward Zwick, whose credits include the recent 'Blood Diamond' and 'The Last Samurai'.

www.jonasmoore.com launches free previews of a ground-breaking, world-first trilogy of live action, second generation graphic novels designed for mobile, iPod, media players and PCs starring British actor, Colin Salmon
The trilogy creates an entire new genre of on-line, iPod, media player and fan generated and marks a revolution in on-line media that blurs the boundaries between real and on-line life.

The Many World's of Jonas Moore trilogy is set in a time where the British Empire has never ended and America is just a virtual world hosted on a vast global game network. Jonas Moore, a character personally created by the network's founder, is thrown into another game world where he discovers that the characters, creatures and monsters are all slaves to the gamers from the real world.

James Bond star Daniel Craig has joined the cast of 'Defiance', a World War Two epic about the Polish resistance.

Screen Daily.com reports that the film tells the true story of four Polish brothers who join forces with a group of Russian resistance fighters.

The film will be directed by Edward Zwick, whose credits include the recent 'Blood Diamond' and 'The Last Samurai'.

Having helped to make Casino Royale the most successful James Bond film ever - grossing more than £300 million worldwide - Daniel Craig has just received a bonus of £2 million from its makers, Eon.

His three-picture deal with the company was not said to be especially generous. "It reflected the fact that he was an unknown quantity in the part," a pal of the 39-year-old actor tells me. "This is just to make sure he doesn't now start to feel hard done by."

Ioan Gruffudd has said he would like to be the next James Bond after Daniel Craig is done with the role.

Daniel landed the role of the secret agent in 2005 and is contracted to do two more films as the character in addition to last year’s Casino Royale - but may not sign on for any more films after that - at which point Fantastic Four star Ioan would love to take over.

Thirty-three year old Ioan said recently: “I would love to play Bond one day but I think I am 10 years too young [at the moment].

“Physically, I am not quite big enough. Of course, I could go to the gym or whatever.”

“Maybe in seven years time when Daniel is done and tired of it and can retire a very rich man, then maybe I could step into his shoes. I think he’s been absolutely brilliant as James Bond. I thought he was superb.”

The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) has struck a deal with US film company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) allowing the follow-up to the successful “The Thomas Crown Affair,” likely to feature the star of the first film, former James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan, to be shot in Turkey.

The film, based on Crown author Eric Ambler’s novel “The Light of Day,” is titled “The Topkapi Affair”; however, MGM’s original plans had reportedly been to create a set that resembled Istanbul’s Topkapi palace and shoot the film in Greece. The deal between TRT and MGM has left Greece out in the cold with current plans set to shoot the film in Istanbul, though whether Topkap itself or a replica will be used is still unclear.

Sir Sean Connery's cousin Jimmy Connery has died following a heart attack outside his Edinburgh, Scotland home. He was 69.

The James Bond star's relation was confronting a group of trouble-making youths about playing loud music before collapsing in the street.

Neil Connery - the brother of Sean - says, "Jimmy was a gentle giant... It is very sad and I can't believe that should happen."

An 18-year-old man has been charged with a breach of the peace.

The first actor to play James Bond on screen has died in the US at the age of 89.

Barry Nelson died while travelling in Pennsylvania, his wife Nansi Nelson, said. The cause of death was not immediately known, she said.

He appeared in a number of films in the 1940s including Shadow of the Thin Man, Johnny Eager and Dr Kildare's Victory. He also landed the leading role in A Yank on the Burma Road.

Nelson played Bond in a one-hour TV adaptation of Casino Royale in 1954, eight years before Sean Connery took the film role in Dr No.

Hotshot writers Neil Purvis and Robert Wade are pegged to work some of their Bond mojo on the old film chestnut, "Barbarella" according to Variety.

Legendary producers Dino and Martha De Laurentiis have completed a rights deal that will enable them to reinvent "Barbarella," reports Variety.

The Italian producers will redo Barbarella as "a free, modern gal who survives in a futuristic world through her intelligence, fighting skills and sexuality".

Purvis and Wade have recently finished a final draft for the 22nd installment of the James Bond franchise which will be a sequel to "Casino Royale," the most financially successful Bond ever.

Former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan has won a major environmental battle in his adopted Malibu, California after his efforts helped secure a victory for activists trying to stop plans for an offshore, floating natural gas terminal.

Brosnan was among many celebrity Malibu residents who opposed the plans and he took part in a pier rally last month to make his feelings known.

California's Lt Gov John Garamendi announced that State Lands Commission authorities had denied the lease to build the terminal at a meeting in Oxnard, California on Monday night - to cheers from protestors.

James Bond star Daniel Craig has been named as the most stylish celebrity in a poll by men's magazine GQ.

The 39-year-old actor landed the top spot in part due to his appearance as the suave secret service agent in Casino Royale.

'No Bond since Sean Connery has worn it better,' the magazine states. 'It works because the 007 uniform seems like an upgrade of what Craig would naturally wear.'

James Bond's latest adventure Casino Royale is breaking high-tech records in North America.

The film, starring Daniel Craig, has become the best-selling hi-definition Dvd to date - a week after its release as a Blu-ray disc

Sony studio executives boast the company has shipped more than 100,000 units in North America, a record for the format. The studio heads have also announced Casino Royale set a record for the most hi-def Dvd discs sold in one day.

The best-selling movie in the Hd Dvd format, Batman Begins, has sold 43,000 copies to date.

A revolver presented to 007 author Ian Fleming has been sold for £12,000 at auction.

The Colt Python .357 Magnum was made for the creator of James Bond, who lived at St Margaret’s at Cliffe, by gunmaker the Colt Company and given to him in 1964.

The weapon was engraved with the message: “Presented To Ian Fleming By Colt's Patent Fire Arms Mfg. Co.” It is still in working order and was sold by Bonhams in London

Daniel Craig starring 'Casino Royale' has broken the first week DVD sales record in the UK.

Since its release, the James Bond flick has sold a staggering 1,622,852 copies of its disks in seven days.

The trade charts also showed an increase in sales of the new high definition Blu-ray format, with 9,456 discs sold in a week.

"We are delighted. Bond has been invigorated with Daniel as the new 007," the Sun quoted Andy Armstrong, head of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, as saying.

He, however, insists that he will charge producers a good amount of money for working in the super-spy franchise.

James Bond film Casino Royale has swept the board at the Empire Awards, winning best film and two acting prizes.

Daniel Craig, who made his debut as 007 in the movie, was named best actor by readers of the film magazine. Co-star Eva Green won best female newcomer.

"I'm delighted that Empire readers have decided that Casino Royale is the best film of the year," said the magazine's assistant editor, Ian Freer.

"We're proud that real cinema-goers have the good taste to do something neither the critics' awards or industry prizes managed to do - really get behind the reinvention of James Bond as a great British triumph."

The British Home Office have granted a real passport to actor Daniel Craig under the name of his 007 character James Bond. The passport was given to film production company Eon in order to add some authenticity to the successful British film.

To keep with security requirements however, the document is supposed to be returned to the Home Office. John Reid, the British Home Secretary says, "The Identity and Passport Service require such passports to be returned and destroyed immediately after use." However a representative for film company Eon claims, "They haven't asked for it so we'll be keeping it indefinitely.

Producers of James Bond flicks can now have Sir Sean Connery back on their sets if their pockets are big enough pay his professional fees. The 76-year-old, who has been resting since 2003 after completing 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen', is ready to play the suave secret agent's father in the next 007 film.

He, however, insists that he will charge producers a good amount of money for working in the super-spy franchise.

"I am resting from acting. So you could say I'm retired. It would have to be something really considerable to bring me back. It would have to be an offer that you can't refuse. If there was a good part in a Bond film, I'd certainly look at it," Contactmusic quoted him as saying.

"I would never return as James Bond. If the part was well written, I could come back as Bond's father but it would cost them. It would definitely cost them," he added.

Connery says that the overuse of gadgets in Bond flicks and a disappointing salary were the reasons behind his severance from the famous series.

"I was getting disenchanted. Apart from the payment, which was puerile, they were bringing in a lit of science fiction stuff, like the poisonous shoe in From Russia With Love. They had all these gizmos, which today are commonplace, that I didn't mind, but when you get into the nuclear stuff...," he said.

As James Bond powers his motorbike over a cliff, leaps off and free-falls to a plane below just in time to pull it out of its dive, his daring appears to defy the imagination, not to mention physics.

Given split-second timing and astonishing bravery, however, Pierce Brosnan's leap in the film Goldeneye is just about plausible, according to one scientist.

What really is beyond the realm of possibility is Bond's seduction technique.

According to Metin Tolan, a physics professor, the powerful magnetic watch used by Roger Moore in Live and Let Die to unzip a woman's dress, would engulf 007 in flames because it would heat up to a billion degrees.

Movie star Pierce Brosnan has his sights set on making a new epic western full of his Irish friends. The former Bond star so enjoyed making post-American Civil War period movie Seraphim Falls with countryman Liam Neeson he wants to go further back into US history to visit the Wild West - and he hopes to take a few pals with him.

The Irish actor says, "It's always in the cards. There's a bunch of us Irish fellows who keep saying we should get together and make a western - myself, Gabriel Byrne, Colm Meaney and people like that. "We'd just like to do an Irish film about the West. I was getting serious about that when, and lo and behold, the script for Seraphim Falls came to me with Liam attached. "That film just whet my appetite further because it's a western-themed movie. "I was brought up on the kind of staple of the westerns. I just thought it all had an elegance to it."

A film fan has offered the £15,000 asking price for the chair on to which James Bond fell during the film You Only Live Twice.

The tan leather and stainless steel 1960s chaise was on sale at the Kings Road Antiques Fair at Chelsea Old Town Hall.

In the 1967 film, Bond - played by Sean Connery - lands on the chair after he falls through a stainless steel chute into Tiger Tanaka's office.

After a brief respite, the Bond movie rumor mill is back in action and churning out new casting rumors. Australian actress Abbie Cornish is being linked with the Bond girl role in the next James Bond movie.

According to Aussie mag New Idea, an unnamed insider at Bond studio MGM, tells New Idea, "Abbie is perfect because she is not familiar to film audiences, but at the same time people have become intrigued by her. She may not have enjoyed being caught up in a scandal at the time but it certainly helped her profile."

The scandal in question suggests that Cornish had an affair with her Stop Loss co-star Ryan Phillippe, which led to his divorce from Reese Witherspoon.

Charlie Higson, at the age of 48, is a Renaissance man: co-creator and star of the cult Fast Show comedy series, former lead singer of an indie pop band, television producer and bestselling novelist, which includes the Young Bond adventure series. But he is also a boy.

As the author of three highly successful novels featuring the young James Bond, and the father of three boys, Higson has a unique perspective on what happens inside a boy’s head between the ages of 10 and 13. And at a time when playgrounds are swathed in cotton wool, and every hint of wild boyish behaviour is frowned on and suppressed, he has rediscovered a psychological formula that stretches back to the Boy’s Own Paperand beyond: answering the animal imaginations of semiferal ten-year-old males and getting them to read at the same time. His most recent Bond book, Double or Die, went straight into the bestseller charts.

Former James Bond star Pierce Brosnan will show off his singing skills when he teams up with Meryl Streep for the big screen adaptation of the hit musical "Mamma Mia".

Brosnan, who plays Sam, one of the three men summoned to a Greek island by a young woman who believes one of them is her father in the new film, says the opportunity to sing Abba songs with Streep was irresistible.

Contactmusic.com quoted him as saying: "I said yes right away because it meant working with Meryl Streep. Secondly, I saw the show with my family in London, and found it just so wonderfully happy and joyful, and so pitched in time forever in the 1970s.

Aston Martin, the classic British marque associated with top footballers and James Bond films, could be back in English hands early next week. Ford is close to agreeing the sale of the upmarket carmaker to a consortium led by David Richards and his private equity-backed Prodrive racing company for up to £500m.

The move is eagerly anticipated by a loyal army of more traditional drivers, such as Michael Urban, the chairman of the Aston Martin Owners Club, who said it would be a great day for British motoring.

To discover exactly how the author, Ian Fleming, envisaged his hero, Prof Rob Jenkins, of the University of Glasgow, and Prof Richard Wiseman, of the University of Hertfordshire, have employed a technique known as prototyping.
"We have used face merging technology to create the image of Bond that Ian Fleming had in mind when he wrote his books," said Prof Wiseman. "The image shows a clean-cut, classic looking face which is far more Connery than Craig.'' He added: ''Perhaps this is another way of resolving the question of who is the best Bond."

Prof Jenkins said: "The image allows us to turn back the hands of time, go inside Fleming's head and see how he envisioned Bond when he was writing his novels."

The same technique has applications for increasing the accuracy of witness testimony in crime investigations.

The researchers will discuss their findings with interested members of the public during a free evening event - The Scientist who Loved Me - at the Dana Centre, the Science Museum's adults-only bar and café, tomorrow evening.

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Former James Bond star Timothy Dalton has warned current 007 Daniel Craig that he faces "overwhelming attention" as the world's most famous secret agent.

The 63-year-old actor, who played Bond in 1987's The Living Daylights and 1989's Licence To Kill, predicts that Craig will be bombarded with questions from "blathering idiots".

Dalton said of Craig: "I shouldn't laugh. But he's going to get all kinds of shit. The attention with Bond is huge - overwhelming.

"I was still able to walk down the street and go to the pub, but there are awful moments like when you're waiting for a plane and a bunch of people decide to descend on you. They become blathering idiots when they ask you about Bond.

"It's as if you came out of a zoo. You've got to talk about the body, the workout, the Aston Martin, the girls. It's a weird thing. People were cross that I didn't really drive an Aston Martin or a sports car."

SOURCE

Lionsgate has picked up U.S. rights to "Butterfly on a Wheel," a thriller starring Pierce Brosnan and Maria Bello.

The former James Bond star plays a mysterious stranger who arrives in Chicago and terrorizes a happy-seeming married couple (Maria Bello, Gerard Butler) after kidnapping their daughter. Soon it becomes clear that his outrageous demands are not in pursuit of a big cash payment.

The R-rated film's title comes from Alexander Pope's "An Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot": "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?" British filmmaker Mike Barker directed.

SOURCE

What similarities do the PS3 and James Bond share? They are both tall, they are both dark and…well actually the PS3 isn’t exactly very handsome (to my mind), but they do have Blue Ray in common. The first 500,000 European PS3 owners (that will be all of the initial shipment then) to register their consoles on the Playstation Network will be rewarded with a Blue Ray copy of Casino Royale.

Darren Carter, Vice President of Brand and Consumer Marketing for Sony has called Casino Royale a "phenomenal incentive" for gamers to sign up to the PS3's online service.

SOURCE

Daniel Craig was honored at the 34th annual Evening Standard British Film Awards. Craig was named best actor for "Casino Royale," his debut outing as James Bond. Craig, who has won both critical praise and box office favor as the first blond Bond, is also up for the best-actor prize at next week's British Academy Film Awards.

Angelina Jolie has revealed that if there is one secret agent whose shoes she would love to step into, it would be the suave British spy James Bond. And if the actress' ambition of being the first female James Bond don't quite work out, she would be just as happy being the next Bond baddie.

"I'd love to be a Bond villain or the first female Bond," Entertainment Weekly quoted her as saying.

"The Mr and Mrs Smith" star was considered for the role of Bond's lady love Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale. However, plans fell apart after she found out that she was pregnant.

While Jolie went on to have beau Brad Pitt's baby, the part of Lynd went to French star Eva Green.