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Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Danny Boyle Says He Couldn't Make ‘Slumdog Millionaire' Today
Danny Boyle may have won a best picture Oscar for his 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, but the director believes they wouldn't be able to make that film in present time. In an interview with The Guardian published Friday, the 28 Years Later director reflected on the Oscar-winning film that starred Dev Patel and Freida Pinto. More from The Hollywood Reporter Box Office: Danny Boyle's '28 Years Later' Bites Off $5.8M in Previews, Pixar's 'Elio' Takes in $3M The Oscars Finally Fell in Love With Tom Cruise. It's About Time '28 Years Later': What the Critics Are Saying 'Yeah, we wouldn't be able to make that now,' he said of the film. 'And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' When asked whether the production itself amounted to a form of colonialism, the director denied that but added, 'Well, 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'd work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you're still an outsider. It's still a flawed method. That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be.' Years later Boyle says he's 'proud of the film' but noted, 'You wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn't even get financed. Even if I was involved, I'd be looking for a young Indian filmmaker to shoot it.' At the time, Slumdog Millionaire was a box office hit and went on to earn 10 Oscar nominations and win eight Academy Awards at the 2009 ceremony. Boyle won for best director. On Friday, Boyle returns to theaters with 28 Years Later, a $60 million sequel that arrives more than 20 years after he and writer Alex Garland revitalized the zombie genre with 28 Days Later. Sony committed to making 28 Years Later and a sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, with the possibility of a third installment. The new installment reunited Boyle with Sony film boss Tom Rothman, who previously made eight films with the director, including Slumdog of The Hollywood Reporter Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT
Yahoo
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Danny Boyle Says He Couldn't Make ‘Slumdog Millionaire' Today
Danny Boyle may have won a best picture Oscar for his 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire, but the director believes they wouldn't be able to make that film in present time. In an interview with The Guardian published Friday, the 28 Years Later director reflected on the Oscar-winning film that starred Dev Patel and Freida Pinto. More from The Hollywood Reporter Box Office: Danny Boyle's '28 Years Later' Bites Off $5.8M in Previews, Pixar's 'Elio' Takes in $3M The Oscars Finally Fell in Love With Tom Cruise. It's About Time '28 Years Later': What the Critics Are Saying 'Yeah, we wouldn't be able to make that now,' he said of the film. 'And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' When asked whether the production itself amounted to a form of colonialism, the director denied that but added, 'Well, 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'd work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you're still an outsider. It's still a flawed method. That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be.' Years later Boyle says he's 'proud of the film' but noted, 'You wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn't even get financed. Even if I was involved, I'd be looking for a young Indian filmmaker to shoot it.' At the time, Slumdog Millionaire was a box office hit and went on to earn 10 Oscar nominations and win eight Academy Awards at the 2009 ceremony. Boyle won for best director. On Friday, Boyle returns to theaters with 28 Years Later, a $60 million sequel that arrives more than 20 years after he and writer Alex Garland revitalized the zombie genre with 28 Days Later. Sony committed to making 28 Years Later and a sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, with the possibility of a third installment. The new installment reunited Boyle with Sony film boss Tom Rothman, who previously made eight films with the director, including Slumdog of The Hollywood Reporter Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best 13 of Tom Cruise's Most Jaw-Dropping Stunts Hollywood Stars Who Are One Award Away From an EGOT
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Danny Boyle says he 'wouldn't even contemplate' making 'Slumdog Millionaire' today because of its 'cultural appropriation'
Seventeen years ago, Slumdog Millionaire swept the 81st Academy Awards, walking away with eight of the 10 Oscars it was nominated for. But Danny Boyle, who took home the 2009 Academy Award for Best Director for his work on the film, says he wouldn't be the right person to helm the Mumbai-set drama if it were in the works today. 'Yeah, we wouldn't be able to make that now,' Boyle recently told The Guardian. Released in 2008, Slumdog tells the story of 18-year-old orphan Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), who survives the violent, poverty-stricken slums of Mumbai to win big on the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. The film, which loosely follows Vikas Swarup's novel Q & A, used a local crew for its Mumbai filming locations and featured actors speaking both English and Hindi. 'At the time it felt radical,' Boyle said. 'We made the decision that only a handful of us would go to Mumbai. We'd work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture.' However, the intervening years caused Boyle to rethink that approach. 'You're still an outsider,' the Trainspotting director said. 'It's still a flawed method. That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be.' As proud as the 68-year-old Brit is of the film, he acknowledged that a modern Slumdog would have trouble getting financed under that model. 'You wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today,' he said. 'And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' Boyle told to EW in 2009 that he dove into Slumdog because he wanted to make a 'very immediate and vital' movie after finishing work on the chilly sci-fi thriller Sunshine. 'I learned quickly that when you work in Mumbai you have to accept what you find,' he said at the time. 'As a Westerner you have this feeling that you can fight bad things and work on good things and separate the two. What you have to do is accept and absorb both. That's what changed me.' In a 2008 director's roundtable convened by The Hollywood Reporter, Boyle acknowledged that he didn't have a full grasp on India during Slumdog's production. 'I know nothing of it, really,' he said in THR's video. 'You get a tiny little glimpse and maybe if we've done it well, there's a bit of it that's convincing, for the time being until somebody makes something better. You absolutely have to humble yourself in front of it.' Boyle told the roundtable that he expected to be viewed as a colonialist when he arrived in Mumbai and was surprised that the people there viewed him as 'a footnote.' 'It lets you let go of that kind of attitude,' he said. 'Either you go home disappointed or you get home and make the film.'Today, however, Boyle told The Guardian that if he were to be part of the team bringing Slumdog to the screen today, he'd want it to be directed by a young Indian filmmaker. 'And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that,' he said. 'We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' Boyle discussed his evolving thoughts as the newest film in his zombie horror series makes its worldwide theatrical deb. Starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, and Alfie Williams, 28 Years Later is a companion piece to 2002's 28 Days Later and 2007's 28 Weeks Later (but not, crucially, the 2000 Sandra Bullock rehab comedy/drama 28 Days). Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly
Daily Mail
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Director Danny Boyle admits Slumdog Millionaire 'would never be made today' unless Indian filmmakers were at the helm
Director Danny Boyle has admitted that Slumdog Millionaire 'would never be made today' unless Indian filmmakers were at the helm. The producer, 68, reflected on the 2008 movie which he directed as he said him and the team in Mumbai who shot the scenes were 'outsiders'. The film was a loose adaptation of the novel Q & A by Indian author Vikas Swarup and followed the story of teenager Jamal (Dev Patel) from the slums of Mumbai. He becomes a contestant on the show 'Kaun Banega Crorepati?' and when interrogated under suspicion of cheating, he revisits his past, revealing how he had all the answers. Danny told The Guardian: 'Yeah, we wouldn't be able to make that now. And that's how it should be. 'It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' 'We made the decision that only a handful of us would go to Mumbai. We'd work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you're still an outsider. It's still a flawed method. 'I'm proud of the film, but you wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn't even get financed. Even if I was involved, I'd be looking for a young Indian film-maker to shoot it.' The moviemaker has recently stepped back into the director's chair to helm the new horror 28 Years Later - written by Alex Garland - 23 years after the pair's first film 28 Days Later hit cinemas. He recently admitted it was a 'nightmare' filming naked zombies for new horror movie. Danny has revealed they needed to take extra care not to have 'naked' actors on the set because they had strict rules in place to protect the film's child star Alfie Williams. Speaking to PEOPLE, Danny explained: 'I mean, if you're recently infected [with the zombie virus], you'd have some clothes, but if you've been infected for a long time, the clothes would just disintegrate with the way that you behave. 'We never knew that [about rules governing nudity on set when there's a child present] going in, it was a nightmare.' Danny went on to explain the work-around they came up with, adding: 'Interestingly, because there was a 12-year-old boy on set, you're not allowed for anybody to be naked, not really naked, so they look naked, but it's all prosthetics ... 'So it's like: 'Oh my God,' so we had to make everybody prosthetic genitals'.' Danny revealed he was keen to push boundaries with the elements of nudity and gore in the film and he's glad studio bosses were supportive of his plans. He told Variety: 'I think one of the wonderful things about horror is that you're expected to maximize the impact of your story. Everybody wants to do that with a drama, with the romance, whatever. 'But with horror, it's obviously gonna be brutal, some of it. What we loved was setting it against an innocence that's represented by the various children in it, and also the landscape, the beauty of the landscape, the nature. 'Having those two forces stretches your story as far as you can go, if you maximize them. That was our principle and the studio was supportive of that, of course they were.' On Thursday critics weighed in on the new zombie horror movie. A follow-up to the 'great' 2002 film 28 Days Later, Boyle and Garland assembled a star-studded cast including Harry Potter star Ralph Fiennes, 62, and fellow Brit Aaron Taylor-Johnson, 35, for their latest endeavor. Two decades on from the original which saw a deadly virus plague London, the new movie finds a group of survivors living on the secluded island of Lindisfarne. Boyle and Garland's new project has received a heap of positive reviews from critics following early screenings. Rotten Tomatoes for instance have handed the movie an impressive 94 percent critic approval rating after rounding up the thoughts of more than 91 film reviewers. The Daily Mail's Brian Viner was incredibly impressed after watching the series' latest gory installment, dubbing the movie the 'best post-apocalyptic horror-thriller film I have ever watched'. Brian wrote: 'With the terrifying and electrifying 28 Years Later, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland have delivered the best post-apocalyptic survivalist horror-thriller film I have ever seen. Which sounds like limited praise, yet it's a much more crowded field than you might think.' Robbie Collin in The Telegraph also handed 28 Years Later a rave review, with the critic scoring the 'terrifying' horror movie five stars out of five. 'Garland employs a strain of peculiarly British pulp humour - very 2000 AD, very Warhammer 40,000 - to undercut the ambient dread,' Collin wrote. 'And flashes of Arthurian fantasias and wartime newsreel footage (as well as a pointed double cameo for the now-felled Sycamore Gap tree_ serve as regularly nudges in the ribs as he and Boyle ty with the notion of a 21st century British national myth.' The film too received five stars from The Times critic Ed Potton, who hailed Jodie Comer's 'impressive as always' performance. The journalist wrote: 'Is this the most beautiful zombie film of them all? It's hard to think of another that combines such wonder and outlandishness with the regulation flesh-rending, brain-munching and vicious disembowelment.' The BBC 's Caryn James gave the highly-anticipated film four stars out of five as she dubbed Ralph Fiennes's performance 'scene-stealing'. '28 Years Later is part zombie-apocalypse horror, part medieval world building, part sentimental family story and - most effectively - part Heart of Darkness in its journey towards a madman in the woods,' she wrote. 'It glows with Boyle's visual flair, Garland's ambitious screenplay and a towering performance from Ralph Fiennes, whose character enters halfway through the film and unexpectedly becomes its fraught sole'. Empire also awarded 28 Years Later four stars out of five, with journalist Ben Travis writing: '28 Years Later is ferocious, fizzing with adrenaline. The mainland thrums with a pervasive sense of immediate danger; when the infected arrive (and, do they arrive), it is breathlessly tense.' Reviews in The Guardian and The Independent were slightly more critical however, with journalists scoring 28 Years Later with three stars. Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian: 'A little awkwardly, the film has to get us on to the mainland for some badass action sequences with real shooting weaponry - and then we have the two 'alpha' cameos that it would be unsporting to reveal, but which cause the film to shunt between deep sadness and a bizarre, implausible (though certainly startling) graphic-novel strangeness.' While The Independent 's Clarisse Loughley wrote: 'Even if 28 Years Later feels like being repeatedly bonked on the head by the metaphor hammer, Boyle's still a largely compelling filmmaker, and the film separates itself from the first instalment by offering something distinctly more sentimental and mythic than before.' 28 Years Later has become the best horror ticket pre-seller of 2025, with the film expected to gross around $30million in its first weekend. 28 YEARS LATER - THE REVIEWS The Daily Mail (FIVE STARS) Rating: With the terrifying and electrifying 28 Years Later, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland have delivered the best post-apocalyptic horror-thrill I have ever seen. The Times (FIVE STARS) Rating: Jodie Comer is impressive as always in the latest instalment of the post-apocalyptic series The Telegraph (FIVE STARS) Rating: This transfixingly nasty zombie horror sequel, starring Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes, is Danny Boyle's best film in 15 years The Evening Standard (FIVE STARS) Rating: Jodie Comer, young Alfie Williams and Ralph Fiennes have a monsters' ball in this supercharged third outing for the 28 Days Later series BBC Culture (FOUR STARS) Rating: Alex Garland and Danny Boyle have reunited for a follow-up to their 2002 classic. It has visual flair, terrifying adversaries and scene-stealing performance from Ralph Fiennes. Empire (FOUR STARS) Rating: The sequel we needed is both the film you expect, and the one you don't. There's blood, but also real guts and brain and heart - visceral cinema soaked in viscera. The Guardian (THREE STARS) Rating: This tonally uncertain revival mixes folk horror and little-England satire as an island lad seeks help for his sick mum on the undead-infested mainland. The Independent (THREE STARS)
Yahoo
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Danny Boyle Says He Would Never Make Oscar-Winner ‘Slumdog Millionaire' Now Amid 'Cultural Appropriation' Concerns
Danny Boyle says he remains proud of Slumdog Millionaire, but he would never make the Oscar-winning film in the current climate. Reflecting on his 2008 Best Picture winner in an interview with The Guardian, Boyle said the film, about a Mumbai ghetto kid (Dev Patel) who wins a quiz jackpot, would be difficult to mount — and for good reasons. More from Deadline '28 Years Later' $5M+, 'Elio' $2.5M-$3M Previews - Thursday Night Box Office What Are The Critics Saying About '28 Years Later'? Deadline On The Red Carpet: Aaron Taylor-Johnson On '28 Years Later's Brexit Nod, Danny Boyle Talks "The Growth" Of Horror, Jodie Comer On "Manifesting" A Movie Musical & Tom Rothman With An Actor Tip 'We wouldn't be able to make that now,' the 28 Years Later director said. 'And that's how it should be. It's time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we've left on the world.' Asked if he felt the production was a form of colonialism, Boyle responded: 'No, no … Well, 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'd work with a big Indian crew and try to make a film within the culture. But you're still an outsider. It's still a flawed method.' He continued: 'That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be. I mean, I'm proud of the film, but you wouldn't even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn't even get financed. Even if I was involved, I'd be looking for a young Indian film-maker to shoot it.' Boyle's comments suggest he is unlikely to be involved in the effort to revisit Slumdog Millionaire through a film sequel and/or TV adaptation housed at Bridge7, a production company founded by former Netflix executive Swati Shetty and former CAA agent Grant Kessman. Directed by Boyle and written by Simon Beaufoy based on the book Q&A by Vikas Swarup, Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of 18-year-old Jamal whose life of hardship in the slums of Mumbai gives him the answers he needs to win a Who Wants To Be A Millionaire-style show. The film won eight Academy Awards, including Best Director. Best of Deadline 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More 'Stick' Soundtrack: All The Songs You'll Hear In The Apple TV+ Golf Series 'Stick' Release Guide: When Do New Episodes Come Out?
