While the production of Bond 25 has been plagued with difficulties from the very beginning, a new official behind-the-scenes set video is all smiles. Indeed this first official set video puts the focus on the sequel’s initial shooting location, Jamaica, and offers some candid looks at Daniel Craig back in character as Bond, Jeffrey Wright reprising his role as Felix, and director Cary Joji Fukunaga looking like he could hold his own in front of the camera opposite 007.

Of course, Bond 25 has had some problems. They began in the script phase, when Danny Boyle pitched a unique take on the franchise that made the film’s producers jettison an existing script by longtime Bond writers Robert Wade and Neal Purvis in favor of Boyle’s new take, written by John Hodge. That film got as far as the early days of casting until Boyle departed the production in August 2018 due to creative differences. This forced producers to return to the Wade/Purvis draft, but after enlisting Maniac and Beasts of No Nation filmmaker Fukunaga to take the helm, the script went through many more permutations with Scott Z. Burns, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and even Fukunaga himself earning preliminary screenplay credits at the start of production.

But the development woes were only the beginning of the Bond 25 problems, as Craig suffered an ankle injury in May while filming in Jamaica and had to undergo minor surgery. Production was further hindered when a controlled explosion damaged the iconic 007 stage at Pinewood Studios in London, and then Fukunaga was forced to respond to bogus rumors that he upset crew by playing PlayStation during filming.

All’s well that ends well, and by all accounts the cast has stood by Fukunaga throughout these unfortunate mishaps. The truth is when it comes to making a movie as big as Bond, you do so under a microscope. So issues that often occur on other complicated blockbuster films get magnified when it comes to a 007 production.

I remain mighty enthused to see Fukunaga’s take on the franchise here, and this video at the very least teases some of the fascinating lighting setups that Oscar-winning La La Land and First Man cinematographer Linus Sandgren is bringing to the table. Check out the Bond 25 set video below. The film also stars Lea Seydoux, Naomie Harris, Ana de Armas, Ralph Fiennes, and Rami Malek and opens in theaters on April 6, 2020.

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Image via MGM/EON
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Image via MGM/EON