Danny Boyle might be an Academy Award-winning director, but he’d never come close to tackling anything even approaching the scope and scale of the James Bond franchise, which is part of what made him such an exciting candidate to helm the landmark 25th installment in the long-running spy series.
In the end, though, creative differences wound up rearing their heads to see Boyle vacate the director’s chair not long before principal photography was due to commence. Cary Joji Fukunaga stepped in to deliver one of the highest-grossing movies of the pandemic that acted as an acclaimed and fitting swansong for Daniel Craig’s stint under the tux, so things turned out fine in the end.
However, Boyle recently outlined his intentions for his version of the story, and it certainly sounds like an interesting approach to the established 007 mythos.
“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. It was a shame really.”
Since making those comments, fans have been debating whether of not the Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire filmmaker would have been able to surpass what audiences ended up getting in No Time to Die.
There’s no doubt that Craig’s final outing as cinema’s most iconic secret agent is a solid blockbuster that brings his five-film arc to a satisfying conclusion, but it’s also safe to say that a more idiosyncratic talent like Boyle would have delivered a James Bond adventure the likes of which we’d never seen before.