AFP/London

German Oscar winner Christoph Waltz and Italian actress Monica Bellucci will star alongside  Daniel Craig in the next James Bond film Spectre, in a new outing promising a strong dose of 007 nostalgia.
The movie - titled after a global criminal organisation featuring in the early Bond films - will be shot in Mexico City, Rome and Tangiers and will also see the famous spy returning to the ski slopes, in Austria, director Sam Mendes said yesterday at Pinewood Studios.
Speaking on a stage built specifically for the Bond films in the 1970s, Mendes gave nothing away about the plot as he unveiled the casting of what will be the 24th film in the hugely successful series based on author Ian Fleming’s fictional Secret Service agent.
Waltz will play the villain in Spectre, which is due to hit screens in October next year. Bellucci, who played in the Matrix sci-fi trilogy, will also appear, along with newcomers including French actress Lea Seydoux and Andrew Scott. Returning actors to the latest Bond adventure will be Ralph Fiennes, promoted to spy chief M, and Ben Whishaw, who played the Secret Service’s technological whiz-kid, both introduced in the last Bond film Skyfall.
The Filipino-American wrestler and actor Dave Bautista is also in.
“We start shooting on Monday,” Mendes said. The director said the cast had begun rehearsals and filming would take around seven months.
Bond will be back behind the wheel of an Aston Martin, a British sportscar long associated with the debonaire 007, Mendes said. The latest model being used, a DB10, was shown on the soundstage alongside the actors.
This will be Craig’s fourth time playing Bond after Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and Skyfall.
“We’ve got an amazing cast,” the 46-year-old told the BBC. Following the huge box office success of Skyfall, he said the cast and crew were “a little nervous” about trying to match its performance. But he added: “Having a challenge like that is pretty good in life”.