Like many others, Sam Mendes was left scratching his head at first when Daniel Craig was announced as James Bond.

The Spectre director told BBC Radio's Test Match Special that he initially thought the casting was a "terrible idea".



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He explained: "I had cast Daniel Craig in this film I made in Chicago called Road To Perdition about 15 years ago, and it was his first big American film.

"The role of Bond came up four or five years later and I was called by Entertainment Weekly, a showbiz publication, and they said 'your old friend and collaborator Daniel Craig has been suggested as Bond, what do you think?' and I said 'terrible idea – he shouldn't do it'."

"For me at the time I thought Bond had become the opposite of what Daniel is – a slightly disengaged, urbane jokey eyebrow-raising, you know, a pastiche in a way, and I felt Daniel's reality and his passion and honesty as an actor would not work.

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"But of course the franchise adapted to work with Daniel and when I saw Casino Royale, I thought it was a fantastic piece of casting. And it was that that got me re-interested in Bond as a movie."

Mendes - director of Skyfall and now Spectre - has confirmed that this will likely be his final bow as a director of the James Bond franchise.

James Bond will return with an action-packed new trailer for Spectre on Wednesday morning (July 22) at 8am.

Spectre will be released in the UK on October 26 and in the US on November 6. Watch a sneak peek of the film's thrilling car chase below:

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