New Bond film is titled Skyfall

New York: New James Bond movie has a title. And that title is Skyfall

The James Bond franchise has yielded some of cinema's most memorable titles, some taken directly from Ian Fleming's novels -- From Russia With Love, The Spy Who Loved Me; Live and Let Die -- and others spawned from the fertile minds of creative screenwriters and producers - The World Is Not Enough. (Also, there was one called Octopussy. We can't change that.)

So it was with some anticipation and some ceremony that the filmmakers behind the 23rd installment in the long-running series revealed the title of their movie on Thursday. And that title is Skyfall.

Reuters reported that the director Sam Mendes officially unveiled the name - really, Skyfall? No, no, just sounding it out, getting used to it - at a news conference in London.

Mr. Mendes, whose previous work includes such felicitously titled films as American Beauty and Road to Perdition, said that Skyfall -- so they're definitely committed to Skyfall? Not, like, "Falling From the Sky Will Kill You Another Day"? On Her Majesty's Secret Skyfall? OK, OK, just spit-balling here - would be consistent with long-running Bond traditions.

"It, I think, has all the elements of a classic Bond movie, including, to quell any rumors, a lot of action," Mr Mendes said, over what we assume were the murmurs of other reporters saying Skyfall over and over in a kind of hypnotic trance and the rapid tap-tap-tapping of fingers quizzically typing the word into smartphone search engines.

The cast will once again feature Daniel Craig as 007 and Judi Dench as M, as well as Javier Bardem, Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney, one of whom we hope is portraying the evil Colonel Skyfall, who from his lair at dreaded Castle Skyfall holds the world hostage with his deadly Skyfall device.

Sony Pictures will release the film in the United States on Nov. 9, 2012, at which point we hope to be fully acclimated to the title Skyfall.