20 Things You Didn’t Know About Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
11. “Grow Up, Double-0 Seven!”
Major Boothroyd (Desmond Llewelyn) would have retired prior to the events of Tomorrow Never Dies in favour of a new MI6 Quartermaster.
Bruce Feirstein noted that: “Between January and September of 1996, there were conversations about Desmond. We all came to the agreement that we would introduce a new Q. We were going to do something where Bond jumps onto a yacht in the South China Sea and there is Desmond fully retired with three gorgeous women. Bond was going to say ‘You’re doing well in your retirement’ and Q was going to look at him and say ‘They are my granddaughters’.”
A retirement scene was also considered, but Desmond Llewelyn had no desire to retire from the role of Q.
Even though Q’s farewell scene was adapted for Bond 19, Llewelyn had hoped to return in Die Another Day (2002) prior to his tragic death on 19th December 1999, mere weeks after the release of The World Is Not Enough.