Michael Apted (director of the previous film) was asked to return as director and, initially, he gladly accepted. Then, however:
Apted: Then the new management un-invited me and I had this very difficult meeting with the Broccolis [Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli] where they said they had to un-invite me. [Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer] thought, "We can do better than him. We want to put our mark on it. We can get Tony Scott or John Woo and they couldn't." They came back to me, but by that time I had got another job. So that was unfortunate because I would have loved to have done another one.
Martin Campbell (director of GoldenEye) was again asked to return as director and again, he passed on it.
Loads, including Hawaii and England for North Korea, and Spain for Cuba. Of couse, with both countries being totalitarian dictatorships, this was inevitable.
Despite fears that the ice would melt and force filming to be moved out of Iceland, the film crew managed to avert this and stick around for those scenes.
Pierce Brosnan clearly doesn't think too highly of this film, as when asked in the Everything or Nothing documentary about the infamous glacier wave surfing scene, his only response was to burst out laughing at how ridiculous it was. He even called it "Narmy".
Former Bond actor Roger Moore also went on record to say how overblown he felt the production was. When the man who was the first Bond in outer space says it's overblown, there's a major problem.
Even the screenwriters felt that the invisible car was a step too far.
Robert Wade: We didn't want it to actually be invisible, we just wanted it to be hard to see, camouflaged in a desert background or an icy background.
Neal Purvis: It was a bit of a surprise to us that it had become invisible.
Special effects man John Richardson wasn't happy with the film due to the use of CGI as opposed to practical stunts. He particuarly hated the CGI surfing shot ("It did not look great and a few of us never expected it to"). He also disliked the Ice Palace due to how unbelievable and impractical it was. The only things he shot that he was proud of were the explosions in the minefield and the model shot of the hovercraft going over the waterfall.
Creator Killer: The film's reception poisoned director Lee Tamahori's career, and xXx: State of the Union three years later would kill it completely.
The Danza: A variation of this trope occurs in the Latin American Spanish dub, where Raúl de la Fuente provides the voice for Raoul. Raúl and Raoul are the respective Spanish and French variations of the names Ralph or Rudolph.
Defictionalization: An odd case. When Bond visits a Cuban cigar factory to find the sleeper agent who has been stationed there, he asks for "Delectados", which at the time of the film was not a type of cigar but in fact a Code Name for the sleeper agent. Shortly after the film was released, many cigar companies began to produce Delectado cigars ("The cigar of James Bond!").
During the scene where Bond is driving on Cuba in his Ford Fairlane, there were some military manoeuvres going on alongside the road.
There was an additional dialogue scene between Bond and Raoul.
The scene where Jinx kills Dr. Alvarez was originally longer: after the kill she breaks into his safe and steals a CD which she hides under her dress.
Deleted was a scene with Bond arriving at Heathrow. To avoid passport control, he disembarks the plane via the landing gear.
A scene with Jinx and Graves playing Ice Golf was cut. In this scene it was revealed why she is chasing Zao.
Lee Tamahori shot a raunchier version of the scene where Bond is rescued by Miranda Frost from Mr. Kil while investigating the biodome. Here they were skin-deep in the hot tub to give the illusion they were lovers. This scene was cut due to censorship reasons, but stills can be found online.
A small scene where Jinx (in her leather outfit) is walking through the ice palace.
Originally General Moon realizes much earlier that Gustav Graves is his son. While Bond and Jinx are exploring the Antonov, they stumble across General Moon and Bond explains to him who Graves really is. He then continues with Jinx to go for the cockpit, while the General watches Graves and Frost planning the military campaign.
Distanced from Current Events: The satellite attack at the end of the film was at first written to take place in Manhattan, but after 9/11, it was moved to the Korean Demilitarized Zone.
Fake Nationality: The featured North Korean characters are played by Will Yun Lee and Rick Yune (both American-born, albeit of Korean parentage) and Kenneth Tsang (Hongkonger), not to mention Toby Stephens (British, through Magic Plastic Surgery). They all have varying success with the Korean lines, though none try to attempt to replicate the North Korean accent.
Franchise Killer: In a way. The film did quite a little bit of damage to the James Bond franchise itself by verging on excessive self-parody and CGI spectacle, with the Austin Powers movies also helping reinforce that self-parody impression. This led to Die Another Day becoming the final James Bond film in the original franchise that started with Dr. No; when Daniel Craig came aboard and replaced Brosnan, Eon Productions abandoned the continuity of the first 20 films and rebooted the series with Casino Royale, bringing only Judi Dench through to the new timeline (as a different M at that). In addition, 2002 marked the cinematic debut of Jason Bourne, who relied on his fists and wits rather than gadgets. The sleeper success of that film helped mark a shift in the spy genre towards more realism, and Barbara Broccoli was quick to catch the trend.
Gay Panic: According to Lee Tamahori, the Les Yay between Miranda and Verity was originally much more blatant, but it was cut. According to him, however, it wasn't done due to Moral Guardians, but rather to avoid turning it into "a male fantasy".
Milestone Celebration: Gets a triple: the 50th anniversary of the first novel, the 40th anniversary of the film canon and the 20th 007 movie. As such, the movie is brimming with Mythology Gags (see the Film page for further information).
Missing Trailer Scene: The trailer contains Bond winking and the cars being loaded on the plane, neither of which appear in the film.
On-Set Injury: Pierce Brosnan suffered a knee injury jumping on to a hovercraft and Halle Berry needed surgery after debris from a smoke grenade flew into her eye.
My father loved Bond movies and he passed that on to me. When I was a kid, we had a James Bond club at my school and we used to do stunts, like break into the school after hours and steal "valuable information" - a teacher's book or something.
Less than a month after the film's release, UK fencing clubs saw an increase in the number of people interested in taking up the sport.
Following the film's premiere, Iceland had a noticeable increase of tourist interest, mostly from people seeking to stay in an ice hotel. No such structure exists in Iceland, which is not nearly cold enough for such a building in the first place, despite its name.
Stillborn Franchise: A spinoff series and movie based around Jinx was quickly scrapped after the character's lukewarm reception among critics and audiences, and then the even worse reception to Catwoman (2004) buried it altogether.
Throw It In!: In the middle of the sword fight, Graves fetches two broadswords. As he walks back towards Bond, Bond kicks his épée away towards the camera. This move was never planned, and just happened on the day.
Working Title: Bond XX, Parallel 38, Double Cross and Darker Than the Sun.
Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Filming had already begun when Lee Tamahori decided he wanted a car chase through the ice palace. Peter Lamont had to rebuild the set with steel girders to support the cars racing around it.
Other Trivia
Die Another Day wound up becoming extremely controversial in both North AND South Korea for a litany of (very complicated and very political) reasons that lead to significant backlash against the Bond franchise there and the film underperforming in the South Korean market. It got so bad that several major Western newspapers wrote stories about how the film had "united Korea in their mutual disdain for the film".
can be found online.