Danny Boyle says British filmmakers “aren’t the greatest”
Danny Boyle has admitted that he doesn’t think British filmmakers are great at making movies.
The director, who has overseen British box office films such as Trainspotting and 28 Days Later, said that despite the success of his own work, British cinema is sorely lacking at an event at the BFI Southbank in London.
“It’s a terrible thing to say at the home of British film but I am not sure we are great film-makers, to be absolutely honest,” he said via The Daily Mail.
He added: “As a nation, our two art-forms are theatre, in a middle-class sense, and pop music, because we are extraordinary at it.”
Boyle was speaking at a screening of 28 Days Later, the Alex Garland-scripted zombie thriller from 2002, which is part of the BFI’s In Dreams Are Monsters horror movie season.
Meanwhile, he also recently told NME that the script for the new film, 28 Months Later, has been ready for a couple of years.
“I’d be very tempted [to direct it],” Boyle said of the script written by Garland, which has “a lovely idea” at the centre of it.
“It feels like a very good time actually. It’s funny, I hadn’t thought about it until you just said it, and I remembered ‘Bang, this script!’ which is again set in England, very much about England. Anyway, we’ll see… who knows?”
Boyle added: “It might come back into focus because one of the things that’s happening in the business at the moment is it has to be a big reason for you to go to the cinema, because there are less and less reasons.
“It’s hard for companies distributing films and for cinema chains to show films, they’re struggling to get people into the cinema unless it’s something like Top Gun: Maverick or a Marvel. But a third part would get people in, if it was half-decent.”
Cillian Murphy, who starred in the original film, also said he could be keen to star in a new film.
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Damian Jones
NME
