Daniel Craig Rips ‘No Time to Die’ Production Curse Rumors: ‘It Pisses Me Off’

Zack Sharf
·3 min read

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Daniel Craig expresses frustrations in a new GQ profile over the media labeling “No Time to Die” a cursed production. The upcoming James Bond tentpole marks Craig’s fifth and final outing playing 007. The film is opening globally in November after what appeared to be a tumultuous production process. Craig told GQ, “It pisses me off because I’m just like, ‘Don’t curse our movie.’ And also, we’re doing our best here.”

“No Time to Die” had behind-the-scenes drama before cameras even started rolling. Screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade were hired to pen the movie after working on all of Craig’s previous 007 movies, but the duo’s script was put on hold after Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson hired Danny Boyle to direct. The “Slumdog Millionaire” Oscar winner brought on his “Trainspotting” writer John Hodge to work on the script, but they wanted to take the narrative to places the producers weren’t comfortable with. Boyle left the Bond film over creative differences and Cary Fukunaga was named the new director with just three months before the scheduled production start date.

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“Danny had ideas, and the ideas didn’t work out, and that was just the way it was,” Craig tells GQ, while adding that four versions of the “No Time to Die” script came and went during the movie’s development. “I would love to have gone into this and had a script that we could shoot. And it just didn’t happen. There were so many things that went against it.”

The “No Time to Die” production faced more hiccups, including an on set injury that forced Craig to have emergency ankle surgery. A report from The Sun in June 2019 created widespread rumors that the “No Time to Die” shoot was an absolute mess. The publication wrote that “mutiny has erupted on the set” because Fukunaga was not showing up for filming because he’s too busy “playing on his PlayStation.” Then there was the June 2019 set explosion that left part of the Bond set damaged and a crew member hospitalized. Later that month, a man was arrested for hiding cameras in the women’s bathroom on the Bond set.

The most recent setback for “No Time to Die” came earlier this month when Bond producers, Universal, and MGM released a joint statement announcing the film’s release would be pushed from April to November because of the global coronavirus outbreak. “No Time to Die” was originally supposed to open in November 2019 but the troubled production caused a reschedule to April. Now the film will open on November 12 in the United Kingdom and November 25 in the United States. Craig has a lot riding on “No Time to Die” because it’s his last movie and it’s the one he’s been most involved in developing.

“I’ve kept my mouth shut before and I’ve stayed out of it and I’ve respected it and I’ve regretted that I did,” Craig said. “I’ve been very forceful in meetings and often way too blunt and probably completely rude. But I’m like, ‘We’re here! Come on!’ And I always say sorry.”

One of Craig’s most notable demands was bringing in “Fleabag” favorite Phoebe Waller-Bridge to polish up the script in the middle of production. Read Craig’s full interview on GQ’s website.

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