“No Time To Die” is already on screens in the United Kingdom and will be Daniel Craig‘s last outing as the British spy, James Bond, allowing a new actor to fill those well-tailored suits. He’s already done multiple promotional rounds for the massive action film that had been delayed multiple times starting in the fall of 2019.
Speaking on the film’s delays with The Empire Film Podcast, Craig echoed reports that streamers were trying to get their hands on “No Time To Die,” stating it would have “felt wrong” if the film ended up on a streaming service rather than a theater. Craig expressed gratitude that distributors MGM Studios and Universal Pictures sided with a traditional theatrical release.
“Thankfully, [MGM and Universal] were incredibly brave and said ‘We want to put this in the cinemas, let’s wait.’ Cause I’m sure the rumors going around were it could get streamed, it could get sold to a streaming service, and that would be it…That felt wrong,” Craig said.
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When he was announced in the fall of 2005 as the new James Bond, Daniel Craig wasn’t seemingly prepared for the level of global pressure a project and character would ask of him.
“I remember [shooting ‘Casino Royale‘] with massive fondness. And all this other shit was going on around it, which was meaningless at the time because I knew we had a good film, I knew ‘Casino’ was good. You kind of go ‘Wait and see, it’s going to be great, don’t worry,'” the actor said when asked to reflect on making the first installment.
Craig was asked about when the pressure and anxieties of Bond disappeared for him jokingly responded with a cheeky “minutes ago.” Essentially, saying playing James Bond isn’t that kind of job, adding how he’s been trying to get back to the idea of having fun with it and the difficulties involved with that, given the pressures of a franchise of this scale.
“I would sort of yearn the person I was when I did ‘Casino.’ Too much knowledge sometimes is not a good thing. I was sort of in the dark about a lot of things, about how things worked, the mechanics of it. How the world really viewed Bond, all of those things I was just didn’t understand them,” he explained. “Then I started to understand them, the weight of it sort of bore down. The trouble with [‘Quantum of Solace’], it was a bit of a shit-show, to say the least, the full weight of it was there I kind of think that made me probably lock up. Thankfully, for me, it’s been about loosening it and loosening it and trying to get back to that feeling of ‘Casino,’ which was ‘It’s James Bond, come on, enjoy yourself. Let’s have a good time.”
The British actor also briefly mentioned “Knives Out 2” wrapping up in Serbia and that the sequel will be “different,” we’re all excited to see that whodunnit as soon as possible.
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“No Time To Die” will release domestically in North America on October 8.