‘True Detective’s Cary Joji Fukunaga is the New Director of Bond 25

When Danny Boyle jumped ship—or was thrown overboard, depending upon whom you believe—from the upcoming 25th Bond movie, he left the final Daniel Craig outing as 007 without a director.

Craig went off to make a movie with The Last Jedi's Rian Johnson, while the producers rehired writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade to fix the script. As the writers of the last six Bond movies—from The World is Not Enough through Spectre—they seemed the sensible choice.

Now the film has a director, one that weirdly hadn't been mentioned as one of the front-runners to land the job neither before nor after Boyle. Cary Joji Fukunaga made a huge impression with his feature directorial debut, 2009's Sin Nombre, as well as his work on True Detective—he directed the entire first season.

Fukunaga went back to features with Netflix's Beasts of No Nation—for which Idris Elba was robbed of an Oscar nomination—in 2015, then moving on to It before flaming out as director and being replaced by Andy Muschietti. He's also got the upcoming Netflix series Maniac with Emma Stone and Jonah Hill.

There's an interesting quote on his imdb page that I think takes on new importance today, considering whom he's replacing...

'City of God' and 'Slumdog Millionaire' are both films that I really like, but they are stylistically the opposite of what I wanted to do.

Well, you've got the chance now to direct a movie that's the polar opposite of what Danny Boyle would've done. I think Fukunaga's an inspired choice, and I am anxious to see what he'll do with the flick. He's the first American selected to direct a Bond movie, so it'll be interesting either way.

Bond 25 has a new, very romantic release date of February 14, 2020.

[h/t Deadline]