The director of Bond 25 has insisted he didn't hold up production to play Red Dead Redemption 2.

This week the tabloids accused Cary Joji Fukunaga of failing to turn up to work because he was too busy playing Red Dead Redemption 2.

According to reports, he kept crew members waiting for hours due to lateness caused by playing Rockstar's open-world epic.

Cary Joji Fukunaga's Instagram post.

Cary Joji Fukunaga took to Instagram to deny the reports. He said everyone's always got something to do every working hour of every day of production, and, while admitting to loving Red Dead Redemption 2, insisted his progress has been "stunted" for months.

Here's the post:

"Our Production Designer/Artful master of living for the day, Mark Tildesley - commented to me once that being a director must feel like dying of a thousand cuts, because of the constant stream of questions one must field.

"There's not a minute on this job that isn't scheduled, and even during a shoot day, in the hours before call, between takes and setups, and after we wrap there's always a line of dedicated and hard working department heads hungry to prep our next sequences, no one sleeps on this kind of job.

"So sure it's hard, but it's still the best job in the world and I'd never disrespect the hardest working cast and crew. We're all in this together. 🍀

"As for my PS4 relationship, if my RDR2 progress is any indication, it's been stunted at 63 per cent for months and if anyone spoils the end for me before I wrap on B25 I'm going to be pissed."

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This isn't the first time a celeb has been accused of playing a video game instead of doing their job.

Back in the '90s, then Liverpool goalkeeper David James blamed PlayStation for his poor form, saying: "I was getting carried away playing Tekken 2 and Tomb Raider for hours on end."

And, more recently, Fortnite has been singled-out as distracting a number of high-profile athletes, with some professional clubs even going as far as to ban it.

As for Bond 25, it's got more problems than its director loving Red Dead Redemption 2. Previous director Danny Boyle walked out over "creative differences," and leading man Daniel Craig suffered an on-set injury.