{"id":199020,"date":"2025-06-20T05:12:14","date_gmt":"2025-06-20T05:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/199020\/"},"modified":"2025-06-20T05:12:14","modified_gmt":"2025-06-20T05:12:14","slug":"youd-never-make-slumdog-today-danny-boyle-on-risks-regrets-and-returning-to-the-undead-danny-boyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/199020\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You\u2019d never make Slumdog today\u2019: Danny Boyle on risks, regrets and returning to the undead | Danny Boyle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK is a wasteland in Danny Boyle\u2019s new film. Towns lie in ruins, trains rot on the rails and the EU has severed all ties with the place. Some residents are stuck in the past and congregate under the tattered flag of St George. The others flail shirtless through the open countryside, raging about nothing, occasionally stopping to eat worms. You wouldn\u2019t want to live in the land that Boyle and the writer Alex Garland<\/a> show us. Teasingly, on some level, the film suggests that we do.<\/p>\n

Boyle and Garland first prowled zombie Britain with their 2002 hit 28 Days Later<\/a>. It was an electrifying piece of speculative fiction, a guerilla-style thriller about an unimaginable world. Since then we\u2019ve had Brexit and Covid, and the looming threat of martial law in the US<\/a> \u2026 The story\u2019s extravagant flights of fancy don\u2019t feel so far-fetched any more. \u201cYes, of course real world events were a big influence this time around,\u201d Boyle says, sipping tea in the calm of a central London hotel. \u201cBrexit is a transparency that passes over this film, without a doubt. But the big resonance of the original film was the way it showed how British cities could suddenly empty out overnight. And after Covid, those scenes now feel like a proving ground.\u201d Where Cillian Murphy first walked, the rest of us would soon follow.<\/p>\n

Photograph: Vlad Vdk\/Contour by Getty Images<\/p>\n

Tense and gory, 28 Years Later is a fabulous horror epic. I would hesitate to call it a sequel, exactly: it\u2019s more a reboot or a renovation; a fresh build over an existing property. Newcomer Alfie Williams plays 12-year-old Spike, who defies his parents (Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and flees the sanctuary of Holy Island for an adventure on the infected mainland. Along the way, he tangles with berserker zombies and smirking psycho-killers, and encounters Ralph Fiennes\u2019s enigmatic, orange-skinned Dr Kelson, reputedly a former GP from Whitley Bay. All of which makes for a jolting, engrossing journey; a film that freewheels through a gone-to-seed northern England before crashing headlong into the closing credits with many of its key questions still unanswered.<\/p>\n

The hanging ending is the point, Boyle explains, because the film is actually the first part of a proposed trilogy. Sony Pictures has put up two-thirds of the budget. The second movie \u2013 The Bone Temple, directed by the American film-maker Nia DaCosta<\/a> \u2013 is already in the can. Boyle has plans to shoot the final instalment, except that the future is unwritten and the industry is on a knife edge<\/p>\n

\u2018It showed how British cities could empty out overnight\u2019 \u2026 Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later. Photograph: Ronald Grant<\/p>\n

\u201cSony has taken a massive risk,\u201d the director tells me happily. \u201cThe original film worked well in America to everyone\u2019s surprise, but there\u2019s no guarantee that this one will. It\u2019s all because of this guy, [Sony Pictures\u2019 CEO] Tom Rothman. He\u2019s a bit of a handful, a fantastic guy, runs the studio in a crazy way. He\u2019s paid for two films, but he hasn\u2019t paid for the third one yet and so his neck\u2019s on the line. If this film doesn\u2019t work, he\u2019s now got a second film that he has to release. But after that, yeah, we might not get to complete the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good directors reflect the times they work in, but they\u2019re at the mercy of them, too, hot-wired to the twists and turns of history; up one year and down the next. And so it is with Boyle, who\u2019s travelled from the sunny Cool Britannia uplands of Shallow Grave <\/a>and Trainspotting<\/a> through the imperial age of Slumdog Millionaire and the London Olympics, right down to the shonky doldrums of today, when a cherished project might collapse under him like an exhausted horse. He\u2019s 68 now, and battling to get his films across the line. I don\u2019t know why he\u2019s so cheerful. Hasn\u2019t everything gone to hell?<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m an optimist,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I don\u2019t despair about things the way I know that a lot of people do. Also I\u2019m slightly more outside the media than you. That allows me a slightly different view on things. And increasingly, as I age, I become more wary of the obsessions of the media. That constant catastrophising and sense of perceived decline.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cool Britannia uplands \u2026 Jonny Lee Miller, Ewan McGregor, Kevin McKidd and Ewen Bremner in Trainspotting. Photograph: Channel Four Films\/Allstar<\/p>\n

It\u2019s particularly noticeable in the US, he thinks. \u201cMuch of Trump\u2019s dominance is undoubtedly down to his appeal to the media. He is so media friendly. His soundbites, everything about him, fit hand in glove with news and entertainment to the point where it\u2019s damaging. Whereas in this country, we\u2019re quite fortunate. We\u2019ve dodged the far-right bullet for the moment and we elected Keir Starmer against the tide of what\u2019s been happening elsewhere.\u201d He reaches for his tea. \u201cIt could be a lot worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2012, Boyle devised and directed Isles of Wonder, the opening ceremony of the London Olympics<\/a>. The show was a triumph: a bumper celebration of British culture that made room for James Bond and the queen, Windrush migrants and the NHS, Shakespeare and the Sex Pistols. \u201cBut my biggest regret was that we didn\u2019t feature the BBC more. I was stopped from doing it because it was the host broadcaster. Every other objection, I told them to go fuck themselves. But that one I accepted and I regret that now, especially given the way that technology is moving. The idea that we have a broadcaster that is part of our national identity but is also trusted around the world and that can\u2019t be bought, can\u2019t be subsumed into Meta or whatever, feels really precious. So yeah, if I was doing it again I\u2019d big up the BBC big time.\u201d He laughs. \u201cEverything else I\u2019d do exactly the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I\u2019m proud of the film, but it wouldn\u2019t even get financed today\u2019 \u2026 Dev Patel and Freida Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire. Photograph: AP<\/p>\n

Isles of Wonder has safely passed into legend. These days it\u2019s up there with James Bond and the queen. I wonder, though, how history will judge Slumdog Millionaire<\/a>, his Oscar-winning 2008 spectacular about a ghetto kid who hits the jackpot. Boyle shot the film in Mumbai, partly in Hindi, and with a local crew. But it was a film of its time and the world has moved on.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we wouldn\u2019t be able to make that now,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd that\u2019s how it should be. It\u2019s time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we\u2019ve left on the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is he saying that the production itself amounted to a form of colonialism? \u201cNo, no,\u201d he says. \u201cWell, only in the sense that everything is. At the time it felt radical. We made the decision that only a handful of us would go to Mumbai. We\u2019d work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you\u2019re still an outsider. It\u2019s still a flawed method. That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be. I mean, I\u2019m proud of the film, but you wouldn\u2019t even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn\u2019t even get financed. Even if I was involved, I\u2019d be looking for a young Indian film-maker to shoot it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bumper celebration of British culture \u2026 the Windrush scene during the Boyle-directed opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. Photograph: Graeme Robertson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

A waiter sidles in with a second cup of tea. Boyle, though, is still mulling the parlous state of the world. He knows that times are tough and that people are hurting. Nonetheless, he insists that there are reasons to be cheerful.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave you got any kids?\u201d he asks suddenly. Boyle has three: technically they\u2019re all adults now. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s progress. I look at the younger generation and they\u2019re an improvement. They\u2019re an upgrade.\u201d<\/p>\n

The director was weaned on a diet of new wave music and arthouse cinema, Ziggy Stardust and Play for Today<\/a>. He began his career as a chippy outsider and winces at the notion that he\u2019s now an establishment fixture. \u201cIt all comes back to punk, really,\u201d he says. \u201cThe last time Lou Reed spoke in public, he said: \u2018I want to blow it all up,\u2019 because he was still a punk at heart. And if you can embrace that spirit, it keeps you in a fluid, changeable state that\u2019s more important than having some fixed place where you belong. So, I do try to carry those values and keep that kind of faith.\u201d He gulps and backtracks, suddenly embarrassed at his own presumption. \u201cNot that my work is truly revolutionary or radical,\u201d he adds. \u201cI mean, I\u2019m not smashing things to pieces. I value the popular audience. I believe in popular entertainment. I want to push the boat out, but take the popular audience with me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I want to push the boat out, but take the popular audience with me\u2019 \u2026 directing Alfie Williams and Aaron Taylor-Johnson in 28 Years Later. Photograph: Miya Mizuno<\/p>\n

I suggest that this might be a contradiction. \u201cYeah, of course it is,\u201d Boyle says, snorting. \u201cBut I\u2019ve found a way to resolve it \u2013 in my own mind, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

If 12-year-old Spike played it safe he\u2019d have stayed on Holy Island beside the reassuring flag of St George. Instead, the kid takes a gamble and charts his own course to the mainland. He\u2019s educating himself and embracing a fraught, messy future. He\u2019s mixing with monsters and slowly coming into his strength. That\u2019s what kids tend to do, Boyle explains. That\u2019s why they give us hope. \u201cMaybe hope is a weird thing to ask for in a horror movie,\u201d he says. \u201cBut we all need something to cling to, whether that\u2019s in films or in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

28 Years Later is in UK cinemas now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK is a wasteland in Danny Boyle\u2019s new film. Towns lie in ruins, trains rot on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":199021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,3943,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-199020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114713981460358158","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}