Update ON LOCATION - Start Shoot of Bond 24 in Rome

Set designers are at work attaching fake headstones to the museum’s marble colonnade after a religious order known as the Archconfraternity of the Departed vetoed use of the city’s Verano cemetary for a funeral scene.

The five-week Rome shot will also comprise a high-speed chase along the Tiber with one or more cars flying off into the river and James Bond parachuting from a helicopter onto the 15th century Ponte Sisto bridge. Other chases will reportedly be staged inside Rome’s historic center in the cobblestone alleys around the Piazza Navona, near the Trevi Fountain, and in the vicinity of the Vatican, where a Fiat 500 will reportedly get crushed, possibly in a crash with Bond’s Aston Martin DB10. Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who worked on “Interstellar,” will make ample use of drone shots.

The Italian line producers are Enzo Sisti (“The Passion of the Christ”), Erik Paoletti (“The American”) and one of my close friend Roberto Malerba (“V for Vendetta”). Production offices are based at Cinecittà Studios, which has started luring more Hollywood shoots lately thanks to Italy’s generous 25% tax break for international productions, the cap on which was crucially raised to 10 million euros ($12.4 million) earlier this year.

Monica Bellucci on Sunday evening emerged from a vintage Aston Martin onto the set of pubcaster RAI talk show “Che Tempo Che Fa,” where the world’s oldest Bond girl recounted that director Sam Mendes described giving her the part as “being a revolution.” “A Bond girl who is 50 is interesting; it communicates a different and more respectful way of looking at women,” Bellucci said.
Mendes and the EON Productions, Sony/MGM production crew have descended upon the Eternal City from the pic’s alpine set in Solden, Austria, from which they released its first image (above) and behind-the-scenes footage on Feb. 11.

Daniel Craig was joined by Italian actress Monica Bellucci for an international photocall in Rome, Italy, today.
It was the first time since the launch event that Bellucci had been spotted on the production. It is understood that her role as Lucia Sciarra is predominately in the first act of the movie.