Daniel Craig’s final outing as James Bond in “No Time To Die” delivered two firsts for the franchise – it gave Bond a kid, and it killed him off in a missile explosion.
In a new interview with The Los Angeles Times ahead of the release of “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery,” Craig reveals that Bond’s death was a key part of him returning for the final outing.
He tells the outlet the two major reasons for killing off his iteration of Bond was that the producers could more easily find a replacement and reboot the series after Craig leaves, and it killed off any chance of Craig’s return:
“Two things, one for myself and one for the franchise. I was like, ‘Well, you need to reset again.’ So let’s kill my character off and go find another Bond and go find another story. Start at [age] 23, start at 25, start at 30. The other was so that I could move on. I don’t want to go back. I suppose I should be so lucky if they were to ask me back, but the fact is I need to move on from it. The sacrifice that he makes in the movie was for love, and there’s no greater sacrifice. So it seemed like a good thing to end on.”
Craig has now moved on to his new regular role of Benoit Blanc in Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” films, and from all reports he loves it. “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” gets a one-week theatrical release this coming week ahead of a Netflix release on December 23rd.
