The Original Idea For Daniel Craig’s Final James Bond Film Would Have Been ‘Very Topical’

Danny Boyle was the original choice to direct the 25th film in the James Bond franchise, which later became No Time to Die. But the Oscar-winning filmmaker left the project due to “creative differences” and was replaced by Cary Joji Fukunaga (who has since been accused of sexual harassment by multiple women). In an interview with Esquire UK, Boyle revealed what his “topical” Bond film would have been about out.

“I remember thinking, ‘Should I really get involved in franchises’ Because they don’t really want something different. They want you to freshen it up a bit, but not really challenge it, and we wanted to do something different with it,” Boyle said. “Weirdly — 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. 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.”

Boyle noted that No Time to Die used a similar plot device as the scrapped script he wrote with John Hodge. “The idea that they used in a different way was the one of [James Bond’s] child, which [Hodge] introduced [and which] was wonderful,” he explained. Would Boyle be interested in directing a future 007 movie “I don’t think so.” There goes the Sex Pistols chance to sing the theme song.