Die Another Day

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Music Video

The music video for "Die Another Day" was directed by Swedish collective Traktor—Mats Lindberg, Pontus Löwenhielm, and Ole Sanders—known for their work in television advertising. Cinematography was handled by Harris Savides. With a production budget of $6.1 million ($10.92 million in 2025 dollars), it became the second most expensive music video ever made, behind only "Scream" (1995) by Michael and Janet Jackson. Filming took place in August 2002 at Hollywood Center Studios in California. Traktor was contacted months earlier with a handwritten letter and a demo from Madonna, initially prompting skepticism. After confirming the offer, Sanders met with Bond producer Barbara Broccoli at London's Pinewood Studios and later with Madonna herself. According to Sanders, the singer was meticulous, clear, and highly involved in the creative process, demanding precise and well-prepared contributions from the team. The video was conceived as a standalone piece, "Bond-inspired" but containing no footage from the film. Madonna described its theme as "don't fuck with me [...] pain is an illusion and death is just a doorway". She portrays a secret agent in a torture chamber and engages in a fencing duel with a doppelgänger—referencing her role as Verity. Post-production was led by London's Moving Picture Company (MPC), where extensive visual effects were applied, including CGI wounds, green screen battles, and stylized blood made from ketchup and Worcestershire sauce. The final frame, a reimagining of the Bond gun barrel sequence, was captured in 2K resolution and color-graded directly from the film negatives to enhance clarity and texture It opens with Madonna being dragged by soldiers into a torture chamber, battered and marked with three Hebrew letters—Lamed, Aleph and Vav—on her forearm. After being violently thrown around and submerged in icy water, she breaks into a defiant, provocative dance amid chains and broken glass. Intercut throughout is a fencing duel between two Madonnas—one in black, one in white—inside a sterile glass-lit room. Their inflicted wounds mirror those of the tortured Madonna. The sequence features nods to past Bond films, including a portrait of Pierce Brosnan and a character with "deadly bowler hats", portrayed by the nephew of actor Harold Sakata, who starred in Goldfinger (1964) as Oddjob. In the final act, Madonna wraps phylacteries around her arm and hides behind an electric chair before being strapped in by her captors. As one soldier pulls the switch, the white Madonna defeats the black one with a speargun. The tortured Madonna vanishes, leaving only the burned Hebrew letters on the chair, much to the captors' shock. The video ends with her escaping the chamber, followed by the Bond gun barrel sequence. The video premiered on MTV on October 10, 2002, alongside an episode of Making the Video. It was later included on the enhanced edition of the film's soundtrack and the DVD release, and featured again in Madonna's 2009 compilation Celebration: The Video Collection

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Chart History (17 weeks)