I know what you're going to say -- am I that desperate for news of Bond, that even the slightest tidbit is enough to catch my eye? As it turns out, the answer is yes. CommanderBond.net recently reported that some unofficial location scouting took place for Bond 22 in Bregenz, Austria earlier this month. Representatives for a opera house in Bregenz confirmed that "people from Pinewood Studios in London" were nosing around. According to CommanderBond, the "people" were producer Barbara Broccoli and director Marc Forster.

Broccoli and Forster visited The Floating Stage on Lake Constance and they also spent some time watching a rehearsal for the festival's upcoming production of Tosca. The rep went on to say that he was expecting a decision sometime this fall, but there were no details of what the production had planned for the opera house.

Last month Foster had confirmed that they were planning on shooting in the Alps, and now we could be adding Austria to the list. (By the way, news about locations seems downright benign with the fallout from a comic Bond still being felt.) Sources at IGN are convinced that producers have given the green light for all the quips and double entendres in the script (which had received a little polishing from Paul Haggis back in May). The possibility that fans were going to have a much more jovial kind of Bond received some mixed reactions. The Guardian newspaper even joined in on the outcry and pleaded with producers to leave the jokes at the door claiming it was the, "creaking gags that sank Bond as a cinematic force." But to this day, there has yet to be a peep out of the production about what Forster really has planned, direction-wise. Not to mention the fact that we've all been burned by bogus rumors before.

It seems that Baz Luhrmann's Australia is one step closer to kicking into production. Blayney News has reported that the town of Bowen, a coastal town in Queensland, Australia, has been chosen as one the primary locations for the epic starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. The story centers on an aristocratic woman (Kidman) who becomes the owner of a cattle ranch in Darwin, Australia. Aided by Hugh Jackman's "rough-hewn drover," she is forced to take on local cattle barons after her land. The film is set in the 1930's and already construction crews are descending on Bowen to start on some of the period sets. Some of the sets underway are a hotel, and a small Chinatown. Bowen also began hosting auditions for over 1000 extras. The mayor of Bowen is already counting on the boom to local tourism, saying "Once Nicole and Hugh are here there will be thousands (of tourists)".

Blaynay News also reported that the filmmakers had received a $500,000 bonus from the state government to shall we say "encourage" the production to choose Bowen, and it appears to have worked. Filming is set to begin this May and is expected to last for six weeks, and there are still a number of main plot points under wraps, such as exactly how much of the film will be about the invasion of Darwin by the Japanese. Will it be an action extravaganza or just a romantic drama with a big, flashy third act? Australia is currently set for release sometime in 2008.