Bond 23 hits cinemas on October 26, 2012, in the UK and November 9, 2012, in the USA. Next year marks the 50th anniversary of the franchise.

Also heading back to the big screen is Mortal Kombat. The popular video game was previously adapted into two films, in 1995 and 1997, and a live-action TV series in 1998-1999.

The latest project began when director Kevin Tancharoen (Fame remake, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie) created an eight-minute video demo called Mortal Kombat: Rebirth in the hope of winning the chance to reboot the film franchise.

Rebirth was a big hit on YouTube and Kevin was then asked to expand his ideas into a 10-episode web series, which he called Mortal Kombat: Legacy. That, too, was a success and New Line/Warner Bros have now hired Tancharoen to helm a feature film to be penned by Legacy writer Oren Uziel.

Tancharoen told ComingSoon: "This is a new take and it's not going to continue directly off the web series. There will be elements that are familiar to the people that have watched it, but it is its own movie. I wanted to make sure that, regardless of anything else, that it's a good movie. It doesn't have to be something that you will have had to have seen all 10 episodes to understand or have played the video game to understand. It's such a big story that you could have two or three movies, but I want to make sure that the first one is good on its own."

And he gave further clues to Entertainment Weekly: "Up to this point, we've only been talking 'rated R.' I like realistic takes on things, I like it when it's a little darker and grittier. And I want the martial arts to feel real as opposed to balletic and super-choreographed. It needs to feel brutal, because that's the nature of the video game itself."

Going in the other direction is Avatar, whose director James Cameron is not only writing two sequels (as well as collaborating with Disney on a theme park attraction) but is also working with Ubisoft on 3D video game adaptations of the two forthcoming movies.

Speaking to IGN about the planned MMO (massively multiplayer online games), Cameron said: "I think Avatar is a perfect IP for an MMO. It's a very, very big world and based on the first film, you might not sense that, but we're talking about an entire planet and in fact a universe that has other planetary bodies, as well, and other cultures, other life-forms.

"The timing is going to have to be carefully orchestrated with the release of the second and third film because we don't want to be giving away elements before the fact.

"And also I think one of the cool things is that you have to have a lot more possibilities for characters than what you see in the film. The film is really just a leaping off point, so we've got to create a rich and diverse world that lives well beyond the films."

On the extra-dimensional aspect, he said: "I think a good game is a good game and I think the play of that game in 3D just is better, but I don't think you're going to author the game differently or design the game differently for 3D necessarily because games tend to be immersive.

"They tend to be relatively point-of-view. You move through a battle space, you move through a game environment, and that's all great for 3D already, so what would you do differently? You want the 3D to adjust itself to you and in real time in the middle of the gameplay, so that's the next level that we have to get to."

The filmmaker admitted the first Avatar game underperformed, despite being the first cross-platform 3D game on the market, because it was released too early, well before the film came out.