At the premiere of her latest movie Mrs Henderson Presents..., Dame Judi Dench revealed to Empire Online that she will be reprising her role as M, head of MI-6, in the new Bond movie Casino Royale

M has been previously portrayed originally and most memorably by Bernard Lee and later by Robert Brown with Judi Dench stepping in when Pierce Brosnan took over the Bond role. Where they're going with this now I am not sure. Yet again the producers have taken a step which completely undermines the original outlay of the movie they were promoting hard, which was that this movie, like the book, would essentially be a prequel to previous adventures.

First they undermine this by casting a man who neither looks, or indeed is, significantly younger than any of his predecessors. Now they cast the woman who, in Goldeneye, Bond directly references as a NEW head of MI-6, REPLACING the previous M.

Somebody needs to make up their mind what stance this movie is taking. If they had just ignored the whole "prequel" angle and just simply replaced Bond and decided to take the franchise into a darker, more serious direction than it had been going there would be no problem. It's not the first time they tried it, so where would be the harm. Now the whole project is descending into a contradictory farce.

And I swear if the rumor is true they've replaced the vital baccarat games with Texas Hold'em, I might just boycott the movie totally.