No Time to Die director Cary Joji Fukunaga on why he's stopped making changes to upcoming James Bond film

The acclaimed director said he had previous "trauma" from another experience, when his first film Sin Nombre came out in Mexican cinemas during the swine flu pandemic in 2009.

“My first movie, Sin Nombre, came out during swine flu, and it came out in cinemas in Mexico right when the President of Mexico said, ‘Do not go to cinemas.’” he told Empire.

“So I had trauma from that experience, and as I was following the news of this, almost every day I was asking [the Bond producers], ‘What’s the plan, guys? Because this isn’t stopping.’”

Fukunaga continued, “I don’t think anyone could have foreseen how the world came to a complete standstill, but I did think audiences would not be going to cinemas.”

However, that doesn't mean that he's continued to work on the Bond movie in the meantime, revealing that he had "mentally finished the film" ahead of its original spring release date.

“You could just fiddle and tweak and it doesn’t necessarily get better,” he says. “For all intents and purposes, we had finished the film. I had mentally finished the film. Mentally and emotionally.”

No Time to Die is Daniel Craig's last outing at the martini-sipping British secret agent and was originally scheduled for an April release date.

That date was pushed back on account of the coronavirus outbreak, and the film will now released in the U.K. on 12th November 2020, while the US release date is 20th November (it was previously billed five days later on the 25th, but has now been moved forward).

To vote for the best James Bond, have your say in RadioTimes.com's new poll.

You can catch up on Daniel Craig's previous outing as Bond by ordering Spectre on DVD from Amazon for £3.99 or renting via Amazon Prime Video. If you're looking for more to watch, check out our TV guide.