HOLLYWOOD - The next James Bond installment is to begin filming in January--with Pierce Brosnan as Agent 007, contrary to rumors that have been circulating that unknown Scottish actor Gerard Butler would be taking over the role. "It just isn't true, and I wish these rumors would stop. We have been inundated with calls all week,'' a spokeswoman Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, producers of the James Bond franchise, told Reuters.
Monday's Scottish Daily News quoted Butler as confirming the rumors.
Brosnan, 48, has appeared in the three latest Bond thrillers, The World Is Not Enough, Tomorrow Never Dies and Goldeneye, and will start filming the latest, as-yet-untitled flick at London's Pine Woods Studio in early 2002.