No Time To Die Trailer Breakdown: Director Cary Joji Fukunaga On Daniel Craig’s Final Bond Movie

Watched the new James Bond trailer? Looking for additional insights from the filmmaker himself, Cary Joji Fukunaga? Read through the gallery for Empire's conversation with the latest 007 director – talking Daniel Craig's return to the fray, Rami Malek's menacing new villain Safin, and the surprise return of Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

The trailer starts in the middle of arguably the most intense domestic in movie history: Bond and his partner, Lea Seydoux's Dr. Madeleine Swann, having a bit of a barney in the middle of a bullet-burnished car chase. It's a far cry from where we left them five years ago. "Spectre ends with Bond and Dr. Swann in the DB5, heading off into the London version of a sunset," laughs Fukunaga. "You can't pretend like that never happened. You have to honour this relationship and see where it goes."

Where it goes, as far as Empire can tell, drives the plot of No Time To Die, with someone or something emerging from Madeleine's past that threatens her relationship with Bond, and the mutual trust they share. "We all have our secrets," hisses Bond in that same car chase. "We just hadn't got round to yours yet." Fukunaga confesses that he and his writing team, including Bond stalwarts Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and newcomers Scott Z. Burns and Phoebe Waller-Bridge, had fun figuring out what those secrets were. "Her father is Mr. White," he explains. "Mr. White was key in the deal that saved Bond's life with Vesper Lynd, so... there's stuff to mine there."

Much of No Time To Die takes place five years or so after the events of Spectre, with Bond — now retired — pulled back into action by his old CIA buddy Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). And Bond soon finds that much has changed since he left. Specifically, MI6 is still recruiting 00 agents, in the form of Lashana Lynch's Nomi. And while the trailer, and Fukunaga, doesn't confirm the long-standing rumour that Nomi has in fact inherited Bond's old codenumber of 007, we'd be surprised if that doesn't turn out to be the case. "The trailer gets across the spirit of the new generation coming up, and always pushing at a ceiling," explains Fukunaga. "One of the themes that I want to play with in this was legacy, and Bond's legacy. After having retired, now having the new generation coming behind, is he being rewritten?"

Although we don't expect the relationship between Bond and Nomi to remain this way for long (there's a moment later in the trailer where we see Naomie Harris' Moneypenny foster a thawing of sorts), it's certainly adversarial from the off. "If you get in my way," she tells Bond, "I'll put a bullet in your knee." And then, after a delicious pause. "The one that works, anyway." It's partially a nod to Craig's much-publicised injury woes across the Bond films (he hurt his knee on Spectre, and knackered his ankle on No Time To Die), partially a riff on Bond's age. "She wants to dig at him, hit the buttons that hurt," laughs Fukunaga.

Not that he's slowing down any. Craig does not look like a guy in his 50s. Unlike Roger Moore in A View To A Kill, he won't be ascending the Eiffel Tower via a stairlift. And at various points in the trailer, we see that Bond, even if his licence to kill status is somewhat clouded, hasn't forgotten how to take care of himself in a tasty situation. "We try not to just pretend like Daniel is the same age as he was in Casino [Royale]," says Fukunaga. "But I don't think at any point you'd ever question this guy can kick some ass."

In perhaps the most comedic riff yet on the iconic 'The name's Bond… James Bond' line, The Artist Formerly Known As 007 has problems getting past an overzealous MI6 security guard. "It's been five years since Spectre," says Fukunaga. "If you were to go to MI6 having been retired, it wouldn't be like the guards he once knew. He couldn't just walk in. He's no longer the dude." The dude abides.

One of Spectre's most controversial moves was the revelation that Christoph Waltz's Ernst Stavro Blofeld, head of SPECTRE, author of all Bond's pain, and avowed cat-lover, was actually Bond's adopted brother, Franz Oberhauser. That movie ended with Blofeld being captured and carted away to clink. But you can't keep a good one-eyed megalomaniac down, and here we see Bond going to visit him. "Blofeld is an iconic character in all the Bond films," says Fukunaga. "He's in prison, but he certainly can't be done yet, right? So what could he be doing from there and what nefarious, sadistic things does he have planned for James Bond and the rest of the world?" You bloody tease, Fukunaga. Although it doesn't seem that Bond is bringing his bro a cake with a massive file in it, we'd be shocked — shocked — if Blofeld spends the whole movie in his prison cell. Not that he's the main villain this time. That honour belongs to…

…this guy. Rami Malek's mysterious Safin. Scarred, in the classic Bond villain style. Making dark threats against Bond and the world, also in the classic Bond villain style. Whether he's a classic Bond villain remains to be seen (there are rumours that he's actually a new incarnation of the first Bond big screen villain, Dr. No), but it's notable that he's the youngest antagonist Bond has faced since Mads Mikkelsen's Le Chiffre. "There's a new generation of bad guys coming up," is pretty much all Fukunaga will say on Safin. "This is somebody who's hyper intelligent and a worthy adversary."

"What are the things the audience expects? Cars, gadgets, fun action scenes," muses Fukunaga. "And then who is gonna be the new female that's going to be a friend or enemy?" Meet Ana de Armas' Paloma, a CIA agent assigned by Leiter to help Bond in the course of his mission. "It was very exciting to try to figure out a character that would subvert expectations." Whatever happens, it's just good to see Benoit Blanc and Marta Cabrera back together so soon after Knives Out. And if you're trying to figure out whether Paloma is a goodie or a baddie, remember: we have eliminated no suspects.

At one point, we see that Safin has got the better of Bond. And, while this seems like Safin is monologuing, Fukunaga says that he was keen to subvert expectations here. "This is sort of a tête-à-tête," he explains. "Daniel and I and the producers were interested in not just your typical villain speech." Certainly, Bond's comeback ("History isn't kind to men who play God") seems like one of the film's key lines. "Bond's saying out loud what we're all thinking: all tyrants have their downfall. At least, we hope so." But does Bond's line also hint at Safin's grand plan? Is he playing God in some way? If so, how? Don't ask us. We only work here.

Although the trailer is packed with action beats — the car chase, that amazing stunt where Bond rides a motorcycle over a wall — it seems that No Time To Die has no interest in escalating the spy movie arms race that has culminated in Tom Cruise flinging himself off tall buildings and throwing himself out of planes for the Mission: Impossible movies. "It was important to me to try not to think about what are we going to do that no one's ever seen before in Bond, rather than thinking about the action before the story," says Fukunaga. "I was really trying to approach it from the perils of the characters rather than Rube Goldberg-esque potentiality." Having said that, this is just a teaser. Don't blame us if, in the finished film, Bond freefalls from the Moon.