No Time to Die was announced as actor Daniel Craig’s final James Bond adventure ahead of its release, leading fans to question how this form of the character would get a deserved and authentic sendoff. The film ultimately hit theaters this past October, bringing an end to the actor’s tenure, with director Cary Fukunaga recently speaking out the process of coming up with such a finale and how tough it was to find a way to bring this chapter of the character’s life to a rest for lifelong fans.

According to Fukunaga, producers had the concept that Craig’s final chapter would be the final world on his version of Bond in a very decisive way, by killing off the character in the final act, from the minute he came in to work on the project that would become No Time to Die.

“In my first meeting with Daniel and the producers, they said that’s how they wanted the story,” Fukunaga told Empire. “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, who directed the first season of HBO’s True Detective and is known for films like Sin Nombre and Beasts of the Southern Wild, wasn’t the first candidate for the job. He was brought in after Danny Boyle, the original director, left out. Fukunaga stated that he was “struggling” with the details of how Bond would die, and that the final selections were decided after production had began.

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

When asked if James Bond was dead, Fukunaga gave an unequivocal and thundering “yes.”

With a runtime of 163 minutes, No Time to Die became the longest Bond film ever. Even though it was criticized for being bloated and tonally conflicted, the added character development helped to make Craig’s farewell more heartbreaking. Plus, despite the fact that Bond is bombed to death, the cast’s performance, paired with Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack, makes Bond’s send-off in No Time to Die a true tear-jerker. Fukunaga has said that he did not want the finale to be unclear.

“I wasn’t trying to be obtuse with it,” the director clarified. “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.'”

Craig was previously undecided about reprising his role as Bond following the release of Spectre, his fourth film in the series. With approximately $800 million worldwide, No Time to Die has become the year’s highest-grossing English-language picture. Spider-Man: No Way Home, on the other hand, is predicted to overtake it in a couple of days.