PENELOPE CRUZ is probably JOINING ‘BOND 24’

Bond 24 continues to coalesce into an actual thing. Hot off the news of a potential villain being cast last week (can it be hot off the press if it happened a week ago?), is the news that Penelope Cruz is joining the flick.

Star Wars: Episode 7″ isn’t the only franchise around town working hard to keeping details under wraps. “Bond 24” is gearing up to shoot this summer, and with reports last week that Chiwetel Ejiofor was being for a villain role, now another big star has come into the casting mix.

The eagle-eyed folks at France’s Premiere magazine noticed that in a recent release schedule update from Sony,Penelope Cruz was listed in the cast alongside Daniel Craig , Ralph Fiennes and Naomie Harris. Is it a mistake? Perhaps, and let’s not forget that as early as last summer, rumors swirled that Cruz would be joining the film(following her husband Javier Bardem’s turn as the villain in “Skyfall”). We’re sure confirmation or denials or (more likely) silence will come down from on high soon enough.

But any rate, casting does seem to be moving along in earnest. Aftonbladet (via Bleeding Cool) reveals that Ida Engvoll And Disa Östrand (yeah, us either) has filmed screen tests for the movie. And it’s a long way to from screen test to casting, so we’ll see if that actually pans out into anything. [Play List]