Now that Daniel Craig's second turn as James Bond has been threatened by critics, the Communist party, and a diaper-craving Paul Haggis, it almost seems unfair to keep piling on. However, nobody's told 81-year-old Roger Moore to hold his tongue, and the former 007 (perhaps peeved that his general standing as "second-best Bond" is in danger of being usurped by Craig) has weighed in with his thoughts on the franchise's direction to Britain's Daily Mail:

Though Casino Royale provided the James Bond franchise with a rebooted reservoir of goodwill, director Marc Forster says that the follow-up, Quantum of Solace, almost took things in a perilous, Mutt Williams-ish direction. Speaking to New York, Forster detailed how Bond producers clashed with screenwriter Paul Haggis when the Crash scripter wanted to add one considerably more kindergarten-friendly element to the film:

For the upcoming 007 flick Quantum of Solace, director Marc Forster wanted to come up with a visual comparable to Shirley Eaton painted gold from head to toe in her famous Goldfinger 1964 death scene. Solution? Goo. Well, a Bond girl drowned in crude oil and her body draped across a white bed. Dick Cheney is the ultimate villain! More pics after the jump. Semi-spoiler alert: If knowing which Bond girl gets it will ruin this movie for you, don't click through. But since the filmmakers themselves are releasing these shots, it's probably not a big deal.

After the rapturous reception afforded the Daniel Craig-toplined Casino Royale, it seemed like the James Bond franchise could do no wrong as it headed into its next installment. Then, the problems began to pile up for 007's 22nd adventure: a lopped-off fingertip for Craig, stuntmen badly hurt, and a theme song tangle with Amy Winehouse that forced producers to settle for a middling Alicia Keys/Jack White duet. Through it all, though, one decision stood head and shoulders above the rest for its sheer confoundingness: the decision to title the film Quantum of Solace. Now, in an interview with GQ, Craig reveals that the head-scratching moniker was essentially his idea:

Though a brief, instrumental version of the new James Bond theme was released alongside a Coca-Cola commercial last week, it's only now that we can hear the full, yowling power of the Jack White/Alicia Keys duet entitled "Another Way to Die." Equal parts hair metal, Bondian bombast, and just plain weirdness (with a healthy helping of White's own "Seven Nation Army"), it's definitely... different. Does it fit into the 007 oeuvre, or will it start Quantum of Solace off on a dissonant note? Enjoy the song (and the additional eye candy) in the video above. Amy Winehouse, your move! [Stereogum]

There are no quantums of solace to be found today in the Jack White household, where the recent unveiling of his and Alicia Keys's theme song to Quantum of Solace via a Coke commercial has the songwriter lashing out at his Sony patrons. "Jack White was commissioned by Sony Pictures to write a theme song for the James Bond film Quantum Of Solace, not for Coca Cola," read a statement obtained over the weekend by NME. "Any other use of the song is based on decisions made by others, not by Jack White. We are disappointed that you first heard the song in a co-promotion for Coke Zero, rather than in its entirety." Ah ah ah — make that Coke Zero Zero Seven, rebranded exclusively for the occasion of Quantum's release this November. We'll withhold judgment of the song itself until we can hear it in its entirety, but the sample available after the jump certainly sounds low-calorie.

Though producers for the upcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace eventually settled on Jack White and Alicia Keys to record the series' first duet, there is one wronged woman who will not go away quietly, and her name is Amy Winehouse. The crack-smoking chanteuse was the first singer approached for the project, and though producers claimed that recording sessions yielded nothing, Winehouse begs to differ — in fact, she told New! that she plans to put her own Bond theme out when the film premieres: