Just a year before his drama Slumdog Millionaire grossed nearly $400 million worldwide and picked up a Best Picture Oscar, Danny Boyle‘s sci-fi thriller Sunshine quietly slid into theaters in the United States. Never even cracking the top 10 during its entire run, its total domestic gross amounted to just over $3.5 million. In the years since, the film has built up a deserved cult following and now the director has recently returned to the project with an extensive one-hour interview.
While it doesn’t dive much into the technical making of the feature, BBC’s Mark Kermode gathered Boyle and physicist Brian Cox for London’s Winter Shuffle to discuss the themes in the film and it’s now been made available online (with a hat tip to Reddit user Lupianwolf). The director kicks off by talking about why he doesn’t appreciate Star Wars and Star Trek, and then jumps to Alex Garland‘s original ending, featuring Cillian Murphy and Chris Evans playing chess as they went into the sun.
Box also talks about science versus art, while Boyle chimes in on the plausibility of Sunshine‘s plot, and the two discuss their personal thoughts on the meaning of life and what the next few million years might bring. As one might expect, they also bring up Gravity, with Boyle calling it a “gamechanger” and Cox saying it’s a “magnificent spectacle.” After segueing to the digital vs. film debate, Boyle names Andrei Tarkovsky‘s Solaris the “greatest space film ever,” while Cox’s pick is James Cameron‘s Alien.
There’s much more to the conversation and one can check out the complete video below, shot and edited by Vin Shahrestani, followed by a brief audio clip of Quentin Tarantino discussing why he felt “betrayed” by the film, as well as dropping a bit of casting trivia. Sunshine is certainly my favorite of Boyle’s films, so whether you’ve never seen it or want to add it to your collection, one can pick it for a little over $10 on Blu-ray here.
Do you believe Sunshine is an overlooked gem? What do you think of the talk?