Bond 23 title announced, shooting details and cast confirmed

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Total Film embarked on a not-so-secret mission to central London earlier today (real spies don't use Twitter half as much as we do) to uncover the true identity of Daniel Craig and Sam Mendes' Bond flick, codename: Bond 23.

But as it turned out, we knew it all along . The new Bond film will be called Skyfall . And if nothing falls from the sky, we're going to be very disappointed indeed.

Sam Mendes announced at the central London press conference that he'll be shooting Skyfall in London, China and Scotland and that the shoot starts... today!

Skyfall has no relation to any Fleming property, making it more of a Quantum Of Solace affair than a Casino Royale - though Mendes made it clear that Skyfall isn't a continuation of Quantum's plot .

Recent casting reports were confirmed - Ben Wishaw , Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney will all appear. Javier Bardem was also confirmed by Mendes as "The villain of the piece."

So the big story here is that the press has been on point with this one - pretty much every Skyfall story we've run was officially confirmed today.

Which does make us worry slightly about the film's action quota , and makes us think maybe it's time to publish a story about Christopher Nolan signing on to direct the next instalment with Christian Bale set to star.

Sam Ashurst is a London-based film maker, journalist, and podcast host. He's the director of Frankenstein's Creature, A Little More Flesh + A Little More Flesh 2, and co-hosts the Arrow Podcast. His words have appeared on HuffPost, MSN, The Independent, Yahoo, Cosmopolitan, and many more, as well as of course for us here at 12DOVE.