#No Time To Die Director Cary Fukunaga Describes The Last-Minute Scramble Of Replacing Danny Boyle

Luckily, Fukunaga had a team of seasoned performers to lean on, including Craig, Rami Malek, Léa Seydoux, Naomi Harris, Ben Whishaw, Ralph Fiennes, Jeffrey Wright, Christoph Waltz, Rory Kinnear, Lashana Lynch, and Ana De Armas. Craig sustained an injury during filming, however, and Fukunaga was forced to wing it, literally sitting in the corner of M’s office, writing from rough draft outlines without being sure how every scene would fit into the film. He explained:

“I was writing dialogue that was intentional enough, but vague enough, that I could apply it to a number of different things happening in the third act. It was almost like a ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ novel writing these pages: ‘If this happened here, and you have to go here, then this page will work for that.’ When we finally put the film together, it all made sense, somehow all fit together. But I’ll tell you a secret, that I think is okay now that we’re so close to release, there are pieces that Ralph Fiennes says in the trailer that neither Ralph nor I knew exactly what he was saying it for.”

So this is how the sausage gets made. It doesn’t necessarily sound like the best method of writing a multimillion-dollar blockbuster, but so far, “No Time to Die” has been getting better reviews than the last Bond film, “Spectre.” So maybe it will all work out in the end and Craig will be able to end his Bond run on a high note.

U.S. moviegoers will be able to judge “No Time to Die” for themselves when it opens stateside this Friday, October 8, 2021.