The James Bond NO TIME TO DIE Team Discusses Danny Boyle's "Crazy, Madcap" Ideas For the Franchise
Before Cary Fukunaga jumped on board to direct the upcoming James Bond film No Time To Die, in 2018 Danny Boyle was developing it as the co-writer and director. I was actually really excited to see what Boyle would do with the franchise, but he ended up leaving the project when his ideas for the film didn’t line up with the producer’s ideas.
After he left the project, rumors started going around online about how he wanted to kill off Daniel Craig’s James Bond, which would have been an insane move! Those rumors were never confirmed or denied, but during an interview with Total Film/Games Radar, members of the creative team opened up about Boyle’s crazy ideas for the franchise. Production designer Mark Tildesley said:
“Unfortunately Danny’s crazy, madcap ideas didn’t quite tie up with what Barbara and Michael had planned. It was definitely a good thing to do. Maybe another time though. I’m revving Barbara up to have another go with Danny.”
Tildesley added that the script Boyle was working on with Trainspotting’s John Hodge, featured “some extraordinary ideas, they just needed a little pulling together.”
After Boyle left, the producing team brought back veteran Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to work on a new screenplay, and in regards to that, Purvis said, “Effectively, we went back to what we’d done. And then we changed things with Cary over several months in the attic at Eon.”
So, Boyle really wanted to mix things up with the franchise and deliver something different and insane. It seems like everyone else just wants to give us more of the same. Don’t get me wrong, I’m stoked for the new James Bond film and I think it looks great, but a part of me was ready for an insanely different and uniquely wild Bond film, which is what Boyle would have delivered. Maybe Fukunaga will still give us that! Just not to the extreme of what Boyle wanted to do.
What kind of Bond film are you hoping to see with No Time To Die?