Daniel Craig addresses 'No Time to Die' delay: 'This thing is bigger than all of us'

Last week, MGM and Eon Productions made the difficult decision to delay No Time to Die for the second time as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The postponement resulted in a domino effect that led to the temporary closure of Cineworld theaters across the U.S. and U.K. Appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon yesterday evening, current Bond star Daniel Craig defended the choice to push off the film.

"Here's the deal: this thing is just bigger than all of us and we just want people to go and see this movie in the right way and safe way," said Craig, who will hang up his tux and martini glass after No Time to Die. "Cinemas all around the world are closed at the moment and we want to release the movie at the same time, all around the world, and this isn't the right time."

While the actor previously stated that he'd rather bleed out than return to the grueling spy-fi franchise, he did admit that he was glad he returned for the 25th installment. "We had lots of loose threads that we hadn't tied up and the story, it just didn't feel complete," he said. "I needed a break, I'll freely admit it. I just needed to get my head away from it for awhile and once I had and we started talking about storylines and things that we could do and where we could take it, I was like, 'I'm in. Let's do one more and try and finish the story' ... This was the chance to round it off."

Fallon also asked Craig what advice he'd give to the next James Bond, who may or may not be played by Henry Cavill. "Don't f*** it up," Craig said. "It's this beautiful, amazing thing ... Leave it better than when you found it."

At the end of the interview, the actor shared an exclusive clip from the film, which depicts 007 jumping off a bridge after being cornered by some enemies. You can check it out at the 4:03-mark in the video below:

Since yesterday was James Bond Day, The Tonight Show also hopped on a Zoom call with Billie Eilish and Finneas O'Connell, the musical sibling duo behind No Time to Die's official theme song.

"It was a crazy, surreal experience," said Eilish, who debuted the song's music video last week. "I do know that for many years we've wanted to write a Bond song. Not even that we thought we could. It was just more like a fantasy ... It was a couple months of disbelief, I think."

From the get-go, Eilish and O'Connell were adamant about making sure that the movie's title was in the track, unlike the opening numbers for Quantum of Solace ("Another Way to Die") and Spectre ("The Writing's on the Wall"). "It wouldn't have been satisfying otherwise," Eilish said. "So, it was a lot of thinking, 'How would we make that make sense? What could we say?' We were kind of stuck for the first few days we tried to work on it. There's a lot of pressure, this is a f***ing Bond song."

They had nothing to worry about because composer Hans Zimmer was immediately in love with it.

No Time to Die is now slated to hit theaters on April 2, 2021 — almost a year after it was supposed to open. The movie was directed and co-written by Cary Joji Fukunaga (Maniac), the very first American director to helm a Bond project in the Eon canon.