Variety sparks false 'Bond 23 delayed' headlines with year-old article

05-Jan-2011 • Skyfall

If you have seen "Bond 23 Delayed Again" headlines around the internet today, don't worry, it's not true.

Trade publication Variety thought they had a nice story on their hands today when they stumbled across a Total Film magazine interview with James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli discussing the MGM situation and how everything was on hold. Unfortunately, the interview was published in January 2010, not January 2011.

Despite being a year late, Variety managed to confirm the story that MGM were taking bids for assets even though MGM has now cleared bankruptcy - a fact any film journalist is fully aware. But that didn't stop Variety from publishing the story by Dave McNary and setting movie blogs alight.

Coverage of the original January 2010 interview and subsequent media coverage can be found here.

Variety seem to have caught their error and removed the article altogether, rather than issuing a clarification or correction. Movie blogs who reported the news verbatim without any second sourcing are running the false headlines, although some have realized their error and are correcting coverage.