Academy Award-winning British director Danny Boyle has said in a recent interview that a film like his 2008 blockbuster Slumdog Millionaire could not be made today. “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,” Boyle said in his interview.
Boyle was speaking to The Guardian after the release of his latest film, 28 Years Later. The director further noted, “That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be.”
Insisting that he was still proud of Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle added that no one could even “contemplate” making such a film today. “It wouldn’t even get financed. Even if I was involved, I’d be looking for a young Indian filmmaker to shoot it,” he said.
In the interview, the director also reflected on his past work, such as the critically acclaimed Trainspotting (1996) starring Ewan McGregor of Star Wars fame and Jonny Lee Miller.
Slumdog Billionaire, starring Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, won eight Academy Awards, including for Best Picture and Best Director. It also won for Best Original Score, making AR Rahman, the film’s composer, an Oscar winner.
Loosely based on Vikas Swarup’s book Q&A, the film revolves around a young man, Jamal Malik (Dev Patel), from a Mumbai slum. Jamal goes on to contest and win in Kaun Banega Crorepati presented by Amitabh Bachchan, making him a millionaire.
While the film enjoyed huge success globally, it has also been criticised by many as racially insensitive, voyeuristic, and inconsiderate towards the dignity of labourers, such as with reference to Jamal’s childhood as a sanitation worker.
Meanwhile, Danny Boyle’s latest film 28 Years Later has hit screens across the world. The film stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes and Jodi Comer. 28 Years Later is another speculative fiction, zombie apocalypse film like his 2002 hit 28 Days Later that starred Cillian Murphy. The new sequel is set 28 years after the events of the original film, after a fictitious virus caused a zombie outbreak in Britain.
In 28 Years Later, making heavy references to Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, Britain is still under quarantine, cut off from the rest of Europe.