Director Danny Boyle calls his exit from Bond 25 a "great shame". The Oscar-winning filmmaker had, in August last year, dropped out of the project along with his frequent collaborator and screenwriter John Hodge, over "creative difference" with the producers. He was to start shooting in December. Boyle was then replaced by True Detective and Maniac director Cary Joji Fukunaga for the film.

In a recent interview for a magazine, Boyle, 62, said he learned a lot about himself from his experience on the project. "I work in partnership with writers and I am not prepared to break it up. We were working very well, but they didn't want to go down that route with us. What John Hodge and I were doing, I thought, was really good, but it wasn't finished. You have to believe in your process and part of that is the partnership I have with a writer," said Boyle.