A view of the James Bond set in Limone sul Garda, near the Garda Lake, northern Italy. (AP)

Rome, April 24: Filming on the new James Bond film in Italy has been suspended after three accidents hit the “cursed” production in five days.

The latest incident left Aris Comninos, an “experienced” Greek stuntman, in a coma after his car collided with a lorry and then crashed into a wall. His co-driver, Bruno Verdirosi, was also treated in hospital but is not said to be in a serious condition.

It follows another accident involving the stuntmen on Saturday. An Aston Martin used in the filming was driven into Lake Garda earlier this week.

Comninos suffered a fractured cranium during the filming of a dramatic 15-minute car chase which opens the movie, which is titled The Quantum of Solace.

He played a villain chasing James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 in an Alfa Romeo 159 along a curving road by the shore of Lake Garda.

He was airlifted after the crash to the nearby Borgo Trento hospital in Verona, where his condition is said to be stable.

“He is doing as well as can be expected,” said a spokesman for his family. An investigation has been launched into the accident by the Italian authorities.

Comninos worked on a previous Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies, and has also worked on Saving Private Ryan and The Bourne Ultimatum, for which he won a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Meanwhile a spokesman for Eon Productions, the makers of the Bond movies, said he did not know if filming would restart at Lake Garda. The accident occurred on the penultimate day of the shoot.

The two stuntmen had already been to hospital after an accident the previous Saturday while they were shooting the same scene. One of them was given 15 stitches to his hand but was immediately discharged, according to local Italian newspapers.

The stunt director of the film’s second unit, Gary Powell, was allegedly unhappy with the results of Saturday’s shoot and had ordered the sequence to be shot again yesterday. The Eon spokesman said suggestions that the film was jinxed were “ridiculous”. He said Eon intended to wait for the results of the investigation.