James Bond director finally breaks down No Time To Die ending

In an interview with Empire, the Fukunaga said: "In my first meeting with Daniel and the producers, they said that’s how they wanted the story.

"They felt that was an ending. I was like, ‘Well, it’s a result of an ending, but we don’t know what happens. It has to be earned."

Fukunaga added that the storyline and crescendo to Bond's death took some time to come together, but when the scene was decided, the circumstances around his death were deliberately left "a bit loose" when production began.

"I was really struggling, because it couldn’t be conventional action," he said. "It couldn’t just be a demonic device, it had to be tied into the central theme of the story."

On whether it's possible Bond could have survived, Fukunaga confirmed the agent is definitely dead.

"I wasn't trying to be obtuse with it. I wanted to be clear with it. But I wanted it to be tasteful. We didn’t want that shot in Terminator 2 where you see Sarah Connor turning into bones.

"But we wanted to show that he wasn’t going to jump down a sewer at the last second. So that wider shot of the island being pummelled was a mixture of macro and micro. The full effect is, ‘Yes, he’s gone, but he succeeded in making sure none of that weapons would go on into the future.’"

He added: "It felt like closure, like closing off the past, and closing off the story. It’s that last sentence in a paragraph in the last chapter of a book, just to try to make it feel satisfying."

Bond met his demise after becoming infected with Safin's DNA-tagged virus, which meant that he would be unable to see his daughter again without killing her, being blown up by missiles at Safin's secret island lair.

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