Danny Boyle: It’s a shame he won’t be directing Bond 25 – but now it's time for a fresh start

The Trainspotting director was never the marquee hiring his name deserves

So Danny Boyle won’t be directing James Bond after all. Five months after it was revealed that the Oscar-winning British director would oversee the 25th official movie in the franchise, he has left the project owing to “creative differences”. In other words: Bond supremos Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli didn’t share his artistic vision.

Is it a shame? Well, yes. From Trainspotting to the London Olympics ceremony, Boyle has proved a master at modulating mood and perspective, his films a mix of kinetic thrills and complex emotions.

Indeed, rewatch Ewan McGregor hot-footing through downtown Edinburgh to the frantic drumbeats of Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life”, and tell me Boyle wouldn’t have provided the fillip the series needed after the leaden Spectre.

Yet no one seemed fussed when Boyle said in March he’d be working from a script by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, who wrote Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall and Spectre. Perhaps it was because his name had been in the mix for ages. Perhaps it was because we’re simply more interested in who’ll take over from Daniel Craig as 007. Whatever the reason, Boyle wasn’t the marquee hiring his name deserves.

If Quentin Tarantino, who has long had designs on Bond, had been handed the reins, it’s fair to say the reaction would have been very different. Imagine the visual chutzpah, the loquacious repartee, the cartoon violence – Bond would have been shaken and stirred by the directorial upgrade. While it’s fun to think of a livewire like Tarantino having a stab at 007, the producers generally prefer someone who can be trusted and bossed around.

Which brings us back to Boyle. Did Wilson and Broccoli pressure him too much? Didn’t they listen to him enough? It could have been either way. Or both.

Daniel Craig in Spectre: It's time to 'jettison' the jaded Bond actor (MGM/Columbia)

The problem now is that there isn’t exactly a surfeit of ideal replacements. Yes, Christopher Nolan would be great, but he’s already ruled himself out of the running. (“I won’t be the man,” Nolan said earlier this year. “No, categorically. I think every time they hire a new director I’m rumoured to be doing it.”) Fellow Brit Joe Wright has the chops, having directed both prestige dramas (Atonement) and pulsating pulp thrillers (Hanna), while New Yorker Bennett Miller, who proved himself with Capote and Moneyball, is also considered a contender.

And let’s not forget Sam Mendes. True, beneath its flashy veneer, Spectre was ludicrously plotted and shot with secondhand panache. Ditto Skyfall. But the producers at least know what they’re getting with him: continuity.

Maybe they should be seeking the very opposite. Why not take this as an opportunity to jettison a jaded Craig (he said after Spectre he’d rather slit his own wrists than play 007 again), replace him with, say, Tom Hardy, and hire some dynamic new writers alongside Boyle’s successor?

Now that would be a fresh start.