EXCITEMENT is building following sightings of a large film set under construction at Hankley Common – and the discovery it’s for Skyfall director Sam Mendes’ next big blockbuster.

Better still the First World War film 1917 Mendes is shooting at the site is a ‘dream team’ partnership with Steven Spielberg, whose production company Amblin Entertainment won the rights to finance it.

Production is due to begin in April and will last 20 weeks – 1917 will be Mendes’ first directorial job since his second Bond film Spectre in 2015.

Mendes clearly enjoyed the experience of filming Skyfall which was also filmed at Hankley Common. The heathland location was used for the dramatic grand finale of the 2012 blockbuster, in which it doubled up as the Highlands setting for Bond’s ancestral home.

Filming of the mock up of The Monastery on the common featured a heavy aerial and ground bombardment in the final sequence that miraculously saw Daniel Craig as Bond escape but Judi Dench as M die from her wounds.

1917 will be Mendes’ second war film. The first was his acclaimed 2005 movie Jarhead – a psychological study of Operation Desert Shield seen through the eyes of a US marine sniper played by Jake Gyllenhaal.

Very few details have been released about 1917 but two stars are reported to have signed up – Dean-Charles Chapman from Game of Thrones (2011) and Before I Go to Sleep (2014) and George MacKay from Peter Pan (2003).

Mendes has sought permission from Wiltshire County Council to film for 35 weeks from April on Salisbury Plain to “include construction of set and use of adjacent land for support services, associated storage and parking” for up to 500 people and the construction of a temporary French farmhouse set.