Leaked James Bond script is kosher

But it is only the first treatment

By Kieren McCarthy, 22nd August 2001

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A script for the upcoming James Bond film - the super-spy's twentieth - leaked to Web site www.Bond20.com is the real thing. It is however only the first treatment and changes are likely to happen between now and the final shoot.

We spoke to the man behind the Web site, Frenchman Nicholas Drapier, who told us the script had been given to him by a scriptwriter friend working on the film. "This is the first draft given to production," he told us. "Not all the details will be in the final movie, although some elements will be." The script dates from the beginning of the year.

Mr Drapier said that the film's production company, Eon Productions, had not been in touch with him but he had contacted them when he received the script to ask whether it was real. "They seemed annoyed but they didn't officially deny the script was real," he told us. Eon Productions has made no legal threats against the site or Mr Drapier.

According to the script, 007 will find out that his father was also a secret agent - with the moniker 007 - and that he may still be alive. Apparently Bond will also drown in an enclosed water tank but be revived with some life-giving drug by a Japanese enemy. The big baddie will be called David Saten, played by Nigel Havers, who is abducting various secret agents.

Totty will come courtesy of Catherine McCallister (who we have never heard of - who is she?) as secret agent 008 - whose father was another agent gone wrong, who Bond has to kill. Apparently Billy Connolly will also appear and get killed after a helicopter battle through New York's skyscrapers with Bond. There will also be an England World Cup scene. And the climax is a battle on the Statue of Liberty.

The threat to the world will also come from the Internet apparently. David Saten hacks into massive corporates' computer systems and uses cyber-terrorism to destroy the free world. Broahahahahahaha.

The film, currently called Bond 20 - hence the Web site - may be called Beyond the Ice. And James Bond will be driving the new Aston Martin DB7 (a good choice - see below).

The Aston Martin DB7 what Pierce Brosnan will be driving in the new Bond movie

Despite details from the script being posted on the Web site since the end of July, it was only picked up yesterday by the BBC. Since then, the newspapers have gone ballistic, with the receptionist at the film's production company, Eon Productions, telling us grumpily that there were already three people waiting to talk to its press officer. ®