Danny Boyle has spoken about the James Bond movie that he wanted to make — and the Bond actor he wants to see.

Cast your mind back to May 2018, when Coronavirus was but a glint in Mother Nature's eye and our greatest nuclear threat was Donald Trump casting hot air about big red buttons on Twitter. Danny Boyle, bona fide British cinematic royalty, was confirmed to have signed on for the twenty-fifth Bond movie. What a glorious wedding it would be: Daniel Craig, arguably the most popular Bond of all time, teaming up with another of the country's filmmaking greats at the height of his powers. Surely we were gonna have another Skyfall on our hands.

A few years later, and the dream was dead. Citing creative differences with Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson — as later revealed, the spat was down to the super spy's proposed demise — Boyle exited the project, eventually being replaced by Cary Fukunaga. “[I'm] not really cut out [for franchises],” he told Metro later on. “I work in partnership with writers and I am not prepared to break it up.” In a recent interview with Esquire UK, Boyle reminisced further, revealing his vision for 007 was set in present day Russia, and would have given Bond a never before seen origin story.

“I remember thinking, ‘Should I really get involved in franchises?’ Because they don’t really want something different,” Boyle said. “They want you to freshen it up a bit, but not really challenge it, and we wanted to do something different with it. Weirdly — it would have been very topical now — it was all set in Russia, which is of course where Bond came from, out of the Cold War. It was set in present-day Russia and went back to his origins, and they just lost, what’s the word… they just lost confidence in it. It was a shame really.”

If you're still chomping at the bit for a Danny Boyle-led Bond flick — and let's be honest, who among us isn't — you'd best temper expectations. Asked whether he'd be tempted to give the franchise another go, his answer was pretty unequivocal: “I don't think so.” He did, however, offer his own picks for who should pick up the mantle from Craig as the next 007: Robert Pattinson or Paapa Essiedu, the latter besk known for his breakout role in I May Destroy You. We'll raise a martini to those picks.

Source: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/danny-boyle-james-bond-plot