Though a brief, instrumental version of the new James Bond theme was released alongside a Coca-Cola commercial last week, it's only now that we can hear the full, yowling power of the Jack White/Alicia Keys duet entitled "Another Way to Die." Equal parts hair metal, Bondian bombast, and just plain weirdness (with a healthy helping of White's own "Seven Nation Army"), it's definitely... different. Does it fit into the 007 oeuvre, or will it start Quantum of Solace off on a dissonant note? Enjoy the song (and the additional eye candy) in the video above. Amy Winehouse, your move! [Stereogum]

There are no quantums of solace to be found today in the Jack White household, where the recent unveiling of his and Alicia Keys's theme song to Quantum of Solace via a Coke commercial has the songwriter lashing out at his Sony patrons. "Jack White was commissioned by Sony Pictures to write a theme song for the James Bond film Quantum Of Solace, not for Coca Cola," read a statement obtained over the weekend by NME. "Any other use of the song is based on decisions made by others, not by Jack White. We are disappointed that you first heard the song in a co-promotion for Coke Zero, rather than in its entirety." Ah ah ah — make that Coke Zero Zero Seven, rebranded exclusively for the occasion of Quantum's release this November. We'll withhold judgment of the song itself until we can hear it in its entirety, but the sample available after the jump certainly sounds low-calorie.

Voilà, Bond fanatics: the second trailer for Quantum of Solace, consisting of approximately 45,000 strung-together microshots that keep cutting to black for maximum seizure-inducing effect. What can we glean from the snippets on display? Apparently, the dude from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly has made a miraculous recovery, but all those frozen years in a wheelchair have made him extremely bitter, transforming him into a Bond supervillain. Jeffrey Wright can imbue even lines like, "James, move your ass," with a stirring gravitas. Daniel Craig still looks excited about his new body. And Olga Kurylenko plays the "beautiful but feisty Camille," who makes up for her lack of naughty-homonym name by mastering that tricky combo of threatening/icy/bangable that is truly the hallmark of every great Bond girl.

Bond, Shames Bond: The divorce of actor George Lazenby and tennis pro Pam Shriver has taken a nasty turn from those earlier toddler-scotching allegations that so scandalized the one-time James Bond a few weeks back. New statements by Lazenby's ex-wife Christina Master contend that he "punched her in the face when she was five months pregnant and broke her nose when their son was dying from cancer," according to reports, which add: "She claims he threatened to kill her when she told him she wanted a divorce and says she was so fearful he meant it that it took years before she found the courage to leave him in 1994." Lazenby denied the claims, further challenging Master to turn up medical reports or photos proving her injuries: "I never punched her in my life," he said through a spokesman. You can believe whomever you want — innocent before proven guilty, yadda yadda — but we know where we stand, and we don't buy for a second that George Lazenby has a spokesman. [Daily Mail]

We're sorry to learn today of the troubles afflicting George Lazenby and Pam Shriver, the one-time James Bond and tennis champion (er, respectively) whose six-year marriage has dissolved into a mess of abuse, dental and toddler drunkenness. At least that's the account handed down in papers filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, which also granted Shriver temporary custody of their three young children and a restraining order based on threats Lazenby allegedly made against his estranged wife. But for those 007-ophiles who shrug off the one-film Lazenby era urging good riddance and the rejoinder that there are no second acts in American life, a closer look at the marital discord in fact proves that the On Her Majesty's Secret Service star couldn't ask for a more stirring, villainous comeback vehicle:

Though producers for the upcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace eventually settled on Jack White and Alicia Keys to record the series' first duet, there is one wronged woman who will not go away quietly, and her name is Amy Winehouse. The crack-smoking chanteuse was the first singer approached for the project, and though producers claimed that recording sessions yielded nothing, Winehouse begs to differ — in fact, she told New! that she plans to put her own Bond theme out when the film premieres:

It seemed too good to be true, and indeed, it was: after rumors surfaced that Amy Winehouse had been tapped to sing the theme song for the upcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace, the troubled songstress fell out of the project (having recorded nothing but confused shrieks of "Oi! Blaaaake" over a propulsive string quartet). Now, Bond producers have turned to an unlikely pair to record the series' first duet:

We're still flipping through "The New Classics" issue of Entertainment Weekly that hit newsstands about two weeks ago. And while we feel that, on the whole, the staffers over there put together a pretty thorough examination of the last 25 years of pop culture, we do have a few qualms with their list. Chief among them is the inclusion of Casino Royale, the 2006 rebooting of the Bond franchise, which came in at #19 in their list of Top 100 movies. While it was certainly a serviceable action thriller, we've never quite been able to understand Owen Gleiberman's fascination with the film (he also rated it the top movie of 2006). Sure, the opening sequence was pretty cool if you've never seen Banlieue 13 or The Bourne Supremacy, but for us, the rest of the film was pure, uncut meh. After all, it couldn't have been just us who fell asleep during that interminable card game of Uno* that took up the entire third act of the film, right? But we're getting off track here. What we meant to be discussing all along is the new trailer for JB22, aka Quantum Of Solace, which we have for you after the jump.

The legend of the "James Bond Curse" took another wholly contrived media twist Tuesday, when Daniel Craig reportedly severed the tip of one of his fingers while shooting the particularly unlucky Quantum of Solace at Pinewood Studios. The injury is Craig's second in a week (he'd previously required eight stitches to close a gash in his chin), but that's just the beginning, notes The Daily Mail:

No stranger to biopics, Leonardo DiCaprio may be in line to portray another 20th-century figure in Fleming, a film chronicling the life of James Bond creator Ian Fleming. Outgoing LA Times columnist Jay Fernandez reports today that DiCaprio's Appian Way shingle has signed on to produce Damian Stevenson's script, which the writer insists is "the real James Bond. ... In England, Ian Fleming's exploits are much better well known. Talking to people out here, no one had any idea that M was based on a real person, Miss Moneypenny was based on a real person." As such, Fernandez notes that Stevenson spent months convincing his buyers at Warner Bros. about the script's "historical accuracy" — which we hoped would mean fresh dirt on Fleming's notorious penchant for rough sex but, alas, seems only to refer to his own Naval intelligence background that informed the Bond character. Hence, we presume, DiCaprio "[taking] the script in a different direction with a new writer." And who can blame him? The guy's been wanting to spank someone since James Cameron cut the BDSM subplot from Titanic. [LAT]

Just a few weeks after announcing the next James Bond movie would be called Quantum of Solace (a title that, for us at least, evokes Stephen Hawking staring wistfully out a Cambridge library window more than it does tuxedos and Walther PPKs), producers have now released the film's teaser poster.

You may now stop referring to the next installment of the recently "rebooted" James Bond franchise as Bond 22 (or, if you were still so tantalized by images of Daniel Craig emerging unclothed from the surf that you hoped they'd continued on in this beefcake direction, How To Stuff A Wild Superspy Mankini); earlier today, the Official Keepers of the Tuxedo revealed the name of the upcoming film : Quantum of Solace, a title taken from an Ian Fleming story. "We thought it was an intriguing title and referenced what happened to Bond and what is happening in the film," explained producer Michael G. Wilson.

"It might not have quite the innuendo of For Your Eyes Only, or even the ooh matron oomph of Octopussy, but the title of the new James Bond film has finally been made public. And it is Quantum of Solace." [Guardian] How the hell will anyone sing a brassy pop song about that? (Your bloggers discuss, below.)

· Unknown actress Gemma Arterton has been anointed as the newest Bond girl, with her agent confirming her "nice-sized role" in Bond 22, though it's still unclear whether her part will fall into the "superspy sexual conquest" or "extremely attractive, but sexually unavailable, Mi6 functionary" categories of 007-supporting females [THR]
· Members of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts are (preliminarily, at least) head-over-heels in blighty* love for Atonement, listing the Joe Wright adaptation 17 times in their awards longlist (a mere 15 options per category!) for the BAFTAS, an announcement that mostly serves to let the public know which movies have been pre-snubbed for their eventual nominations. [*We only put that in for the benefit of our readers who are driven insane by Varspeak.] [Variety]

Miss Moneypenny passes on, having never woken up to find James Bond's tuxedo crumpled up on her bedroom floor. [AFP]

· Starz tries its hand at scripted programming, hoping not to jar viewers expecting to see famous faces on their rerun movies by centering its strategy around two celeb-driven half-hour comedies: one about a house-renovating TV show and one about a shrink-to-the-affordable-celebrity-guest-stars. [Variety]
· Endeavor welcomes fussy Six Feet Under funeral director and Dexter psychopath Michael C. Hall into the family. [THR]
· The just-concluded Telluride Film Festival snags 12 world premieres, including Dylan biopic I'm Not There and Noah Baumbach's Margot at the Wedding. [Variety]
· Perhaps tiring of hearing about how Jason Bourne could easily kick James Bond's ass, the producers of Bond 22 bring on Bourne franchise action designer Dan Bradley as their second unit director. [THR]
· ABC promises that it will hire a fifth View co-host soon, probably before Elizabeth Hasselbeck leaves to pop out the baby she's seemingly been carrying for two years. [THR]

Bollywood sex symbol and former Celebrity Big Brother UK contestant Shilpa Shetty is being wooed by the producers of the next Bond film to play the superspy's love interest, reports Metro:

· Paramount is in talks to let The Fountain's Darren Aronofsky loose on Matt Damon/Mark Wahlberg boxing drama The Fighter, a project with a conventional story that might be able to resist some of the director's more bizarre, artsy impulses. Still, Var cautions: "He isn't necessarily expected to take a traditional approach." [Variety]
· Balloons cascade from the ceiling of her ICM agent's office as Heather Locklear is cast in her 1,000th TV project, the ABC comedy pilot See Jayne Run. [THR]
· Punk'd: Plug Yank'd. Unless, you know, this is just another one of that Kutcher kid's incredibly clever practical jokes! [Variety]
· Dancing with the Stars cleans up against weak competition, pulling in an average of 21 million viewers. Also: We're starting to suspect that Heather Mills if faking the amputee thing. There's no way a prosthetic leg stays on when she does a flip like that. [THR]
· Casino Royale will soon break the still-young record for hi-def DVD sales, as viewers scramble to experience every chiseled contour of Daniel Craig's body in the stunning resolution that only the superior Blu-ray™ format can deliver. [Note: this item sponsored by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment] [Variety]

On Monday morning (especially on this post-Cruise wedding Monday), there is only pain. Dull the agony of your dreaded return to work with the weekend box office numbers:

It's Casino Royale's opening day, and in true Bondian fashion, new 007 Daniel Craig appears to have emerged unscathed from the threat of the eviscerating laser beam trained squarely on his manhood by his many internet-enabled detractors since his casting was first announced. Did they expect him to fail? No, Mr. Craig: They expected you to quit, and cede the role to a more debonair, less pigment-challenged actor. But it's he who is getting the last laugh, as his reviews have been raves, singling out for particular praise the ultimate secret weapon he's been hiding under his tuxedo jacket all along: A rippling, inflated torso that just begs to be ogled. (Even the Queen threw on her slinkiest number to meet the generously manboobed object of her affections.) Giggles The Guardian like a schoolgirl: