"He would've wanted it this way"

No Time To Die director Cary Joji Fukunaga has broken down the film's explosive ending, revealing that Daniel Craig, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson knew they wanted to kill off James Bond since early development talks. 

"In my first meeting with Daniel and the producers, they said that's how they wanted the story", he said. 

"They felt that was an ending. I was like, 'Well, it's a result of an ending, but we don't know what happens. It has to be earned'. 

"I was really struggling because it couldn't be conventional action. It couldn't just be a demonic device; it had to be tied into the central theme of the story".

And if you had any lingering doubts, the first American to helm a Bond film also confirmed that Daniel Craig's Bond is dead:

"I wasn't trying to be obtuse with it. I wanted to be clear with it. But I wanted it to be tasteful. We didn't want that shot in Terminator 2 where you see Sarah Connor turning into bones.

"But we wanted to show that he wasn't going to jump down a sewer at the last second. So that wider shot of the island being pummelled was a mixture of macro and micro. The full effect is, 'Yes, he's gone, but he succeeded in making sure none of those weapons would go on into the future'.

"It felt like closure, like closing off the past and closing off the story. It's that last sentence in a paragraph in the last chapter of a book, just to try to make it feel satisfying".

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