Sam Mendes which began transmission in early 2013. In April 2016 he was named as the President of the Jury for the 73rd Venice International Film Festival. On 5 January 2010, news broke that Mendes was employed to direct the 23rd Eon Productions installment of the "James Bond" franchise. The film, "Skyfall", was subsequently released on 26 October 2012, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Bond films. Mendes had been employed as a consultant on the film when it was in pre-production, and had remained attached to the project during the financial troubles of MGM. The film was a major
James Bond Colt .45 Army Special. The first Bond film, "Dr. No", saw M ordering Bond to leave his Beretta behind and take up the Walther PPK, which the film Bond used in eighteen films. In "Tomorrow Never Dies" and the two subsequent films, Bond's main weapon was the Walther P99 semi-automatic pistol. In the early Bond stories Fleming gave Bond a battleship-grey Bentley Litre with an Amherst Villiers supercharger. After Bond's car was written off by Hugo Drax in "Moonraker", Fleming gave Bond a Mark II Continental Bentley, which he used in the remaining books of the series. During "Goldfinger", Bond