New Skyfall trailer shows James Bond faking his own death

• Skyfall is to be released in the UK on October 26

• New Bind film will feature a London Tube crash and an explosion on the MI6 building

During the trailer M - played by Dame Judi Dench - appears to be preparing an obituary for 007 as she sits in her rain-lashed office in London, pondering: “What do you say about a man like that?”

Moments later actress Naomie Harris is seen taking aim through a rifle sight as Bond grapples on the roof of a speeding train, with M telling her to “take the bloody shot”. Craig then plunges hundreds of feet from a viaduct into a river below after being shot.

M goes on to view a row of coffins draped with Union Flags but Commander Bond returns to the screen by telling his boss: “Commander Bond reporting for duty.”

Dame Judi responds: “Where the hell have you been?”

It will not be the first time Bond has apparently died in the plot of one of the films. In You Only Live Twice he fakes his death to go undercover.

Other clues to the plot come when actor Ralph Fiennes is heard to admonish M when he tells her: “Three months ago you lost the drive containing the identity of every agent embedded in terrorist organisations across the globe.”

She hits back: “I made a judgment call.”

The trailer also shows scenes of Craig running along London’s Whitehall, hurtling down a Tube escalator, riding a motorcycle through Istanbul and having a shoot-out in a market.