With MGM’s announcement that it was filing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (Renn did a nice summary of it here), the two big films that everybody’s wondering about is The Hobbit (which is well underway) and the newest Bond film.

And it appears that 007’s newest theatrical romp is imminent(-ish), according to The Hollywood Reporter.  MGM plans to release the 23rd film sometime in the Fall of 2012 and has splitting ownership of the property with an (as of yet) unnamed party that will front all of the production costs.  MGM is also pretty confident that after the dust settles on all of this that they’ll be able to wholly own, fund and produce a new Bond film every two years after that.

So after all of that everything appears to be falling into place for the studio.  As far as the movie itself, the only things I’ve been able to find out are that Sam Mendes is in talks to direct and Craig will more than likely return to the role.  But with him starring in Fincher’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which is filming now, and Craig’s numerous other roles lined up between now and 2012, the scheduling isn’t exactly clear.  As always, we’ll bring you more as we hear it.