Ever since Danny Boyle famously left his role as director of the latest James Bond movie in 2018, there has been much speculation as to exactly what caused him to walk away from the project.
The official reason given at the time was “creative differences” and several months after the film’s eventual release, Boyle has now been rather more specific about the nature of those differences, as he explained in a new interview in this week’s issue of Radio Times magazine.
The filmmaker – who is currently promoting his Sex Pistols TV series Pistol – said: “It’s hard when there’s a lot of money involved or prestige, visibility. That was John [Hodge, screenwriter] and I working on something that we thought was really special and they didn’t, in the end.
“The truth is that Daniel [Craig] had negotiated with them as part of his deal that he could die, which is a surreal prospect. That was built in. It’s an understandable exit plan for Daniel, and we embraced that hugely.
“We had a plan for him… But the passageway to it was obviously very different [to what the Bond gatekeepers had in mind].”
He explained that his planned plotline for his version of No Time to Die would have taken the iconic double-0 agent to Russia, but added that in the end, he has no regrets about walking away when the disagreement became clear.
“We all got very well paid, so you have to hold your hand up,” he said. “You can’t walk around with grievances.”
Earlier this month, Boyle outlined more specifics about his Russia plotline in an interview, explaining: “It would have been very topical now.”
“It was all set in Russia, which is of course where Bond came from, out of the Cold War,” he told Esquire. “It was set in present-day Russia and went back to his origins, and they just lost, what’s the word… they just lost confidence in it. It was a shame really.”
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The full interview with Danny Boyle appears in this week’s edition of Radio Times. To celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, Radio Times is releasing a 116-page commemorative edition, featuring covers, articles and illustrations from our archive – buy Radio Times: Her Majesty The Queen for £9.99 at Radio Times Shop.
No Time to Die is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video – visit our Movies hub for more news and features, or find something to watch with our TV Guide.