We'd all heard the rumors prior to the movie's release (the title may also have been a slight hint), and No Time To Die made the bold, somewhat controversial decision to kill-off James Bond in its closing moments, with Daniel Craig's iconic super-spy going out in suitably spectacular fashion.
Director Cary Joji Fukunaga has already spoken about choosing to send 007 off to the big cocktail bar in the sky, but in a new interview with Variety, the filmmaker outlines some of the alternate ideas he had for the character's death scene.
In the film, Bond sacrifices himself to save his loved ones (not to mention the rest of the word) from a biological weapon unleashed by Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), and meets his maker in a hail of rocket fire after calling in a missile strike. However, it sounds like 007's demise was almost handled very differently.
Fukunaga says he toyed with the idea of "blowing him up in a rocket," before describing a more low-key, arguably appropriate end for Ian Fleming's secret agent.
"A bullet, like an anonymous bullet, I remember that one. But it just seemed like a conventional weapons death didn’t seem appropriate. Given how much he had been able to escape from everything else, the fact that it would just be a bullet that always had your name on it from the beginning, as a sort of the thematic element seemed, while realistic, for Bond it had to be something even beyond that — like the impossible, impossible situation."
Where the franchise goes from here remains to be seen. We know a new actor is being sought to take over from Craig, but will he play Bond in a full reboot? One would assume so, but it would be a shame if that excellent supporting cast didn't get to reprise their roles.
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Mark Cassidy is a writer, photographer, amateur filmmaker, and Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic from Dublin, Ireland.