Daniel Craig named next 007
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-16 09:55

At the packed press conference inside a Royal Navy facility on the Thames, he fielded questions from various reporters, tabloid gossip columnists and a journalist from the Ministry of Defense magazine.

His favorite Bond? Sean Connery.

Favorite Bond film? "Goldfinger."

Favorite Bond girl? Diana Rigg in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."

But he brushed aside questions about supermodel Kate Moss and actress Sienna Miller _ both tabloid fixtures whom he has reportedly dated.

"I'm not going to get into that," he said.

Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, originally published in 1953, "Casino Royale" is one of the few Bond adventures not to feature the MI6 gadget-maker Q. It was previously filmed as a 1967 spoof starring Peter Sellers.

Director Martin Campbell _ who directed Brosnan's first Bond outing, "GoldenEye" in 1995 _ said the movie would be "tougher and grittier" than previous films, with "more character and less gadgets." He said the story would begin with Bond first becoming a "double-0" agent.

"It is really the arc in which he becomes Bond," Campbell said. "He starts out just having earned his double-0 stripes and comes out at the end the Bond we know and love.

"A lot of the embryonic Bond things will come out in the film _ how he gets the Aston Martin, how he mixes a martini."

"Casino Royale" is due to begin filming in January, in the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, Italy and at Pinewood Studios near London. Campbell said the budget will likely exceed $100 million.

"I am looking most forward to actually starting getting on with it, and feeling intimidated about pretty much everything," Craig said. "It is a sort of responsibility, but it is also a huge adventure."