Once you've got your Bond actor nailed down - and that's taken a fair while for Bond 25 - the next most important piece of the puzzle is a decent villain.

The Daily Mirror reports that the producers of the next Bond film want Helena Bonham Carter, who did a nice line in wild-eyed menace as Bellatrix LeStrange in the Harry Potter franchise, to play opposite Daniel Craig.

"Everyone thinks Angelina Jolie is going to get the part but bosses want Helena more," the paper quotes a source as saying. "At the moment they are just finalising the cast."

Craig's also taking on a more expansive creative role on this one, according to the report, and has already met up with recently announced director Danny Boyle to chat about the plot and where we'll leave Craig's Bond at the end of his final film in the role.

We don't know yet whether Christoph Waltz's sockless evildoer Franz Oberhauser, better known as Blofeld, will be pulling the strings again having been left crawling across Westminster Bridge at the end of Spectre.

As for the rest of the cast we know that Ben Whishaw will be back as Q, but Naomie Harris is still in the dark as to whether she'll return as Eve Moneypenny.