Danny Boyle, director of the zombie-hit 28 Days and cult favorite Trainspotting, follows up these projects with Millions, a warm, family-friendly film about two boys who discover a mysterious bag full of cash. While promoting Millions, he spoke to Latino Review about his upcoming projects, which include Alien Love Triangle (a 25-minute short), Sunshine, (a sci-fi feature), and even a possible sequel to Trainspotting.
Boyle actually completed Alien Love Triangle years ago, but it has yet to be released by Miramax. Given the studio's uncertain future, it's unclear what will happen with the film. "It's like 25 minutes long," he says, "So it's kind of like an orphan, because it doesn't have any partners. It was meant to have two other 30-minute films to go with it." The film stars Courtney Cox, Heather Graham, and Kenneth Branagh.
"It's very funny," Boyle says. "It's very silly. It's about aliens, really. Courtney Cox and Heather Graham play aliens. But Courtney Cox is an alien inside Courtney Cox's body. Which is an interesting place to be, we can all agree. And Heather Graham is a female alien who arrives to take Courtney Cox back—who's a male alien inside Courtney Cox's body."
In Boyle's next project, Sunshine, he again tackles a different genre, this time science fiction. "We hope to start in July," he says. "It's a sci-fi. It's a kind of space mission movie, a mission to the sun. And they're taking a bomb to reignite a section of the sun that's failing, and the bomb is immense. It's the size of Kansas. And whenever we say that at the Q&A's, people shout out that we should let it out there, as well. And someone else shouts out, it wouldn't make much difference, anyways." He laughs. "I don't know very much about Kansas. It's just a figure of speech, anyways."
"It's sci-fi," he continues, "So it's got those kinds of rules about it. It's a mystery. There's a mission that's gone seven years earlier, and it's failed. And no one really knows what happened to the crew. And at the end, they get to meet the source of all life in the universe," he laughs, "which has got to be worth at least ten bucks, twelve dollars." Boyle has not yet made any decisions about casting.
Much further down the line, Boyle wants to direct "Porno," a quasi-sequel to cult-favorite Trainspotting, which will pick up where the last film left off . . . twenty years later. "We want to make it about those guys when they look middle-aged . . . The idea of it is not to try and attract a new audience to Trainspotting; it's to play it to everybody who watched it when it first came out."
As for 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to his horror smash 28 Days, Boyle is only involved in an Executive Producer capacity. He gives us some hints of the plot. "It's got a good idea. It's a very strong, simple idea again. England has been basically abandoned. There's been no life there for six months. And the Americans arrive to restart it back up again, to reboot it." He does not believe that Naomie Harris will appear in the film.
There's also an outside chance that Boyle could explore even a more distant genre—historical epic. Frank Boyce, the writer for Millions, is working on an adaptation of "The Odyssey" and wants him to direct. "I'm not really interested in historical things or period films," Danny Boyle says, but he swears he's cracked it. "I've cracked The Odyssey!" he says.