Cary Fukunaga, who has directed the latest James Bond instalment No Time To Die, has speculated that Sean Connery’s iteration of 007 “basically” rapes a woman.

The filmmaker, whose past credits include True Detective and Netflix‘s Maniac, was speaking about the shady legacy of Bond in a recent interview with Variety.

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“Is it Thunderball or Goldfinger where, like, basically Sean Connery’s character rapes a woman?” Fukunaga asks. “She’s like ‘No, no, no,’ and he’s like, ‘Yes, yes, yes.’ That wouldn’t fly today.”

No Time To Die is the first Bond to be released post-#MeToo, and features the second ever female writer to work on the franchise, Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

“I think that’s the expectation, a female writing very strong female roles, but that’s something Barbara [Broccoli, the film’s producer] wanted already,” he insists.

“From my very first conversations with [Broccoli], that was a very strong drive. You can’t change Bond overnight into a different person. But you can definitely change the world around him and the way he has to function in that world. It’s a story about a white man as a spy in this world, but you have to be willing to lean in and do the work to make the female characters more than just contrivances.”

The film also hails the end of Daniel Craig’s reign as Bond. Whereas his replacement has yet to be confirmed, Craig has gone on record to say that a woman should not step up as the next 007.

“There should simply be better parts for women and actors of colour,” Craig told Radio Times.

He added: “Why should a woman play James Bond when there should be a part just as good as James Bond, but for a woman?”