Dench Is Still M? I Am Confused...

Hey guys, it's Donnie...Personally, I think this could represent the first really bad news concerning 007's newest adventure. Empire Online talked to Dame Judi Dench about her upcoming Mrs. Henderson Presents and she revealed that she will in fact be reprising her role as M in Casino Royale. According to Dench, she's set to start in February and she'll be filming in both Prague and the Bahamas.

Now...I really just don't know about this. The whole point of Casino Royale was that they were going to restart the Bond franchise ala Batman Begins. I'm all for that approach, seeing as Bond movies, just like the now defunct Batman franchise, had become rather bloated, unweildy and emotionally hollow...kind of like Sally Struthers. So if you're going to start from scratch, why would you keep the same actress playing one of the major series characters? I mean, I love Judi Dench and all, but this is like if they had done Batman Begins and let Michael Gough keep playing Alfred. You have to get rid of your entire cast, otherwise you're not really restarting the franchise.

Now we should keep in mind that this is coming solely from Dench (who also says she hasn't seen a script yet) and not from Sony or director Martin Campbell. Dench was also repeatedly quoted as saying that Brosnan was coming back for another go around, so it's entirely possible that she doesn't quite have her finger on the pulse of this project. Or she could be talking it up simply because Sony is stonewalling her and she wants to stay onboard. Who knows. But Judi Dench seems convinced that she's still playing M...and that sounds like trouble to me.