Why does everyone (myself included) keep running these breathless items about who might play James Bond when the series finally gets rolling again in ’06? The 007 franchise is a very dry and dusty mummy — it’s been completely dead in every way but financial for a long, long time. (I’m not one of those who feel that Goldeneye revived things.) And it’s obvious to me that the people making the calls about the 007 hiring (producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson, and Bond franchise owners Sony Pictures) are erratic and all over the map in their “creative” lungings. In any event, the rumor is now that Pierce Brosnan will do it yet again. London’s Mirror ran a story today (Wednesday, 4.27) quoting Dame Judi Dench as saying: “Despite the fact that everyone on the face of the earth has been tested as his (Brosnan’s) possible replacement, he’ll be doing it again and it will be announced come summer.”