The rumours around why Danny Boyle quit as director of the next James Bond film have been swirling since the split was announced in the middle of August, but a new interview with Boyle himself provides some answers.

Speaking to the Radio Times while he was still attached to the project, Boyle admitted that it would be "impossible for a Bond aficionado to write or direct a Bond film".

Danny Boyle is very, very much a Bond aficionado. "The books were everything to me when I was a kid," he said. "I read them multiple times."

"Like everyone else, I saw the films, but I’d already read the books so I had a different relationship with the characters.

"Although, I think it’d be impossible for a Bond aficionado to write or direct a Bond film. You’d be hampered by how much you knew. They want you to bring a freshness to it."

So that might be the real reason that Boyle had to take a step back, rather than the suggestion that he was being pressured to murder Bond in an explosive finale or that he couldn't get the casting he wanted for the film's Russian villain. Then again, a Bond aficionado probably would be quite upset at being asked to murder Bond.