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What Are Alex Garland And Danny Boyle Doing' What Is SUNSHINE About'!
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Okay, first-up, we got this e-mail:
Hey Harry,
Apparently, Variety is reporting that novelist/screenwriter Alex (The Beach, 28 Days Later) Garland is getting back into the movie business. This time, he has sold his spec. sci-fi piece to Fox Searchlight to undergo Danny Boyle's direction.
If you haven't read either the Beach or the Tesseract by Garland, I can't recommend doing so enough. The Beach is definitely written in the same genre and style as Fight Club was (I'm talking books here -- not movie adaptations) but the Tesseract displays a minimalist approach to writing so diverse he was called the next Graham Greene. That's something we've not seen Chuck Palahniuk do yet. We can only pray that after his adventures in the screen trade, Garland will turn out another novel soon (please, God). But for the time being, that career seems to have been put on hold. At first, I was really disappointed when I heard he had teamed up with Danny Boyle - who cannabilized his novel the Beach - in 28 Days Later. But after seeing the film, I was thrilled - I had just watched a real, honest-to-God Alex Garland story unfold before my eyes, this one easily on par with his novels. (It might have been similar to the way those who read Fight Club felt after the movie came out - I don't know, I read the book after I saw it.) I've heard you talk on the site before about future, mouth-watering collaborations between David Fincher and Chuck Palahniuk, which we can only pray occur. To me, this is just as good (sure, Boyle is no Fincher, but he can be bloody magnificent when he wants to be. Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later...I love those movies). In a way, this collaboration could be Great Britains response to Palahniuk/Fincher - hopefully, both pairs will do many films. But now, hearing that there is a science fiction thriller in the works... the possibilites are very exciting. The new movie is titled Sunshine and it deals with a group of men on a fraught mission in space. That's all I know, but I was really hoping that you guys had heard more about it. Please be kind and put something more about this movie on your cool site.
Call me KrylyrWell, your wish is our command, Krylyr:
I also had the chance to read the new screenplay Sunshine by Alex Garland, who wrote 28 Days Later, and the Beach, one of the best novels I have ever read. Danny Boyle has just signed on to direct this film. Sunshine concerns a group of astronauts heading towards the sun in an attempt to deliver an explosive payload and prevent it from becoming a dead star. The ship is covered with solar panels, which help to deflect the deadly rays emitted from their destination. A distress signal leads them to discover a ship that was sent on the same mission seven years prior to theirs, but disappeared and was never heard from again. Needless to say, circumstances force them to board and investigate the first ship, and scary things happen from there. The first two acts of Sunshine, leading up to the search of the missing ship, are very very interesting. The dialogue is generally strong, with not too much exposition. Garland has managed to construct an interesting setting, and an interesting set of characters, who are all painted in quick broad strokes, but stand out individually. It is the third act of Sunshine that brings the entire script down. Sunshine goes from being a mysterious, creepy, intriguing science fiction film to a slasher film. It turns out that a malevolent being has snuck onboard and begins slaughtering crewmembers. This is a lame turn in the story, which had been so fascinating up to that point. it feels as though Garland simply wanted to wrap up the story as quickly as possible, and just decided to throw in a killer aboard the ship. The killer's motivations are far too vague, and the whole thing descends into silliness. The script is only 93 pages long. Garland needs to re-write the third act and at the very least, flesh out the motivations of the killer and make the change in tone more gradual rather then suddenly jumping to horror. If the third act is cleaned up, Sunshine has the potential to be a well-done film.
Call me Spidermonkey, and keep up the great work, I love the site!Thanks, guys. Certainly sounds like it’s worth paying close attention to.
"Moriarty" out.
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Sounds like it has a little promise, but I can see this being another Event Horizon if Boyle isn't careful with it.
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But can they recreate the magic of Fight Club? I always consider fight club to be a rare convergence of artistic talents that just exploded with creative synergy. It'll be tough to duplicate that magic. To me its a perfect film all the way down to the incredible score by the dust brothers. I love how audience are so polarized by it. In my top ten all time for 'modern' films. I also anxiously watch anything Danny Boyle does. Good stuff. M
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I'd like to think of this guy as the "backpacker novelist". Tesseract held a special interest for me since I'm Filipino and the story is set in the Philippines, with Filipino characters, surprisingly, as the major players in the novel. But astronauts...well...might be a hit or miss, we'll just wait and see.
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I thought Danny was going to be doing "Worcester Cold Storage"? Whatever happened to that project?
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I think the TBer who mentioned that these two artists have taken their favorite themes to their logical extent was dead on. 28 Days Later was the two of them at their height. Time for them to collaborate on something totally different from what has gone on before.
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Hmmm...I thought it was gonna be more of Sorcerer in outer space. Now it sound more like Event Horizon or Supernova. I'm sure it will be pretty good though. Always like Boyle. Well, not Life Less Ordinary. And I like the Beach novel and the movie. By the way, Boyles commentary on 28 Days later puts other directors to shame. Informative, breezy, and insightful. Finally!
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hahahahaha....anyways......
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What the hell is Boyle doing? This sounds totally uninspiring - what the hell happened to 'Porno'. This is the film he SHOULD be making next. Looking foreward to 'Millions' though - anyone know when its out?
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There is an agreement of sorts that Boyle will direct PORNO some time in the future but there are a number of problems. The guys who starred in TRAINSPOTTING were relatively unknown back then and now some of them (most certainly McGregor) are huge, expensive stars.So there's the problem of getting them all together and still make a film that can turn a profit. Boyle has also gone on the record that he wants to wait a few more years before he starts with PORNO because all the actors don't look old enough for their roles. PORNO is set 10 years after TRAINSPOTTING and while that's the exact amount of time that has passed since that film came out the actors - according to Boyle - are living too healthy lives and didn't age enough in that span of time.
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I hear the big line in the film is when an eyeless Sam Neill goes, "You can't leave. She won't let you."
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Everyone was excited about the possibility of "Porno" until the book actually came out. Last summer, Ewan McGregor was quoted as saying that he was loathe to make a sequel because Trainspotting was a great film, but if you make a subpar sequel, Trainspotting will be remembered more for its lesser sequel than for how good it was by itself. I took that as an indication that he (and possibly others) didn't think Porno provided adequate material to make a good book from. Given what has happened to "The Matrix," I have to say I would just as soon they let Trainspotting stand on its own.
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Porno was not as great as Trainspotting, but it was still a fun read and could be turned into a solid movie adaptation. I was under the impression that Ewan's reluctance had as much to do with the falling out he had with Boyle over the casting of The Beach as it did with his not wanting to make a bad sequel. Put that cast together again, and I really can't see how they could possibly come out with something that discredits the original. Even if it's not as good, so what? It'll still be a fun movie. Of course, Renton is a major player, but the story of Porno belongs more to Sick Boy and a new female character. Also, it's not only a sequel to Trainspotting; it's also somewhat of a sequel to Glue, which I thought was a great read as well.
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Garland may have "ripped off" bits of "Dawn of The Dead" but he also took from "Day of The Triffids" as did Romero. Romero also took from "I Am Legend" by Richard Matheson. Alex Garland said in the commentary on the "28 Days Later..." dvd that his two direct lifts were the shopping spree and the chained, infected Mailer.
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