Judi Dench says Daniel Craig's idea helped decide the fate of M in James Bond, and the revelation lands years after the character was written out of the series. In her memoir, Dench says she was told over lunch that they were going to bump her off.
Dench, who had played M since GoldenEye in 1995, said she was taken to the Wolseley restaurant by Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson and Sam Mendes. She wrote that they outlined the plot and told her, in effect, that her time was up after three films with Craig in the franchise.
That is the detail that gives the story its weight: Dench says she did not think Craig was even at the meeting, yet adds that it was apparently his idea to have her killed. It is a sharp and unusual claim because it links one of the franchise's most powerful plot turns directly to the actor who had already become the face of 007.
Craig had already been vocal about wanting 007 to die, and Bond himself later did in No Time to Die, one of the series's most talked-about moments. Dench's account in Is It Too Late to Make a Run for It? suggests that the instinct to end big characters was not limited to 007 alone.
What remains unanswered is why M had to go at that point. Dench has put the decision in print, but she has also left the line between idea and authorship blurred, with Craig absent from the lunch she describes and yet still credited with the idea behind one of the franchise's most memorable exits.
