The next James Bond movie has a director. This afternoon Columbia Pictures sent us an announcement confirming that as rumored, Finding Neverland director Marc Forster is now signed to direct Bond 22.

It doesn’t sound like he’ll waste any time starting work either. Columbia says, “Forster will commence work shortly with screenwriter Paul Haggis on a draft of the screenplay by Neil Purvis and Robert Wade. “

Directing a spy franchise flick seems a far cry from Forster’s other work on movies like Neverland, Stranger than Fiction, and Monster’s Ball. But Forster seems to think it’s right up his alley. He says, “I have always been drawn to different kinds of stories and I have also always been a Bond fan, so it is very exciting to take on this challenge. The new direction that the Bond character has taken offers a director a host of new possibilities...”

For my part, I can’t wait to see what he does with it. Forster’s recent work has been brilliant, even the unfairly panned and ignored movie Stay, which the world seemed to inexplicably overlook in 2005. It’ll be interesting to see what he does with an action movie.