Danny Boyle says his James Bond movie departure was "a great shame".
The 62-year-old director had signed up to helm the 25th film about the suave spy, but he left the project in August due to "creative differences" with producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, and he has now confirmed a script dispute was the reason.
He said: "I learned quite a lot about myself working with Bond. I work in partnership with writers and I am not prepared to break it up.
"We were working very, very well, but they didn’t want to go down that route with us.
"So we decided to part company."
Cary Joji Fukunaga has since been appointed as the movie’s new helmer, and Boyle wouldn’t reveal any specific details about the disagreement because it would be "unfair" on his replacement.
He said: "It would be unfair to say what it was because I don’t know what Cary is going to do.
"I got a very nice message from him and I gave him my best wishes … It is just a great shame."
Boyle was working on the Bond script with his writing collaborator John Hodge and while that screenplay has since been ditched, the filmmaker firmly believes their movie would’ve been "really good".
He added to Empire magazine: "What John [Hodge] and I were doing, I thought, was really good. It wasn’t finished, but it could have been really good."
The hotly-anticipated new Bond film was reported to be titled ‘Shatterhand’, but Broccoli recently hinted that is not the case.
She signed a piece of fan art which included the word "Shatterhand" on, but she drew an arrow and wrote the words "it’s not".
The movie is expected to be Daniel Craig’s last outing as the Martini-swigging spy after playing the iconic character in ‘Casino Royale’, ‘Quantum of Solace’, ‘Skyfall’ and ‘Spectre’.
Since Boyle departed the film, Rami Malek has been linked to the motion picture to potentially play a Bond villain, while Billy Magnussen is said to have been in talks about portraying a CIA operative.
Danny Boyle says Bond 25 departure is ‘great shame’
