sunshine

sunshine is the new movie directed by danny boyle (trainspotting, 28 days later). due out march 2007, sunshine takes place in the near future where the sun is dying and as a result, the earth is dying as well. a team of astronauts tried to revive the sun by delivering a mini "big bang," but the mission failed, and seven years later, another team goes out to finish the job.

sunshine is also the second original screenplay by author alex garland (the beach, the tesseract). his first was 28 days later, which i thought was fantastic. yes, it was a zombie movie, but it was also a human refugee story, which i thought was actually quite optimistic for something written by garland. 28 days later, i felt, was brilliant through and through.

now he's back, with danny boyle directing, and sunshine looks like it will be great. sure, the plot seems like it will be a typical garland ending - you have a bunch of people, something bad happens, and it ends violently. not too original, mind you, but garland has always managed to tell very human stories through a complicated and fantastic set of circumstances.

although the movie is not coming out until 2007, you can get a detailed production report through the form of blogs, photos and video from the website. it's actually kind of interesting watching a film develop, from the early stages of script writing to set and character design, to actual filming, special effects, and editing.

and speaking of special effects, there's nothing better than a science fiction movie to bring a visual bang for your buck, especially when you have something as visceral and brilliant as the sun to digitally enhance through computer generated effects.

the following are some production photos, and a video blog regarding the film.



for more, go to the website.