Danny Boyle is giving his “Sunshine” fans a ray of hope: The head has revealed really nan 2007 subject fabrication film almost landed a franchise, particularly since screenwriter Alex Garland had “extraordinary” ideas astir expanding nan plot.

Boyle, who precocious announced that his different Garland-penned film “28 Years Later” is portion of its ain caller trilogy, told Collider that 2 sequels were outlined to proceed nan “Sunshine” storyline. “Sunshine” starred Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Hiroyuki Sanada, Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, and Michelle Yeoh arsenic astronauts tasked pinch reigniting nan sun successful nan twelvemonth 2057.

“Originally, erstwhile we were doing it, Alex wrote 2 different parts. It was expected to beryllium a trilogy,” Boyle said. “He [Garland] only wrote an outline. [But] it was a planetary trilogy. It was to do pinch nan sun itself, pinch 2 different stories.”

While Boyle added that he “can’t retrieve [the plot] successful capable detail” for nan different 2 slated films, location was “an bonzer thought successful 1 of them” that progressive nan conception of “looking extracurricular and moving.”

However, nan ideas were partially scrapped because “Sunshine” underperformed astatine nan container office. “We mightiness good person done it, yeah,” Boyle said, besides adding that “the movie did nary business astatine all!”

Boyle besides recalled really he tangled pinch 20th Century Fox complete imaginative differences connected nan film. “I remember, Tom Rothman [then Fox movie chief] — who is nan logic you tin only watch 28 minutes of ’28 Years Later’ today — I’ve had a number of fights pinch him complete nan years,” Boyle said of moving pinch nan workplace executive. “I retrieve him watching ‘Sunshine,’ and I retrieve him saying, ‘The only dream you offer. The only hope you offer, Danny, is that small greenish works sprout successful that burnt-out oxygen garden. There’s a small greenish shoot, and you deliberation there’s hope! And Michelle Yeoh sees hope! Then you termination her! In that moment, you termination her! You can’t do this!’ Anyway, I retrieve a large blowout pinch him astir that.”

As for his continued collaboration pinch Garland, Boyle said, “What’s absorbing is Alex has a earthy small heart arsenic a storyteller to want to show these expanding stories, and that is why ’28 Years Later’ wound up arsenic a trilogy.”

And “Sunshine” will ever beryllium a agleam spot successful Boyle’s ain filmography: “Look, I emotion nan film. I really love nan film,” he said. “Some of that film, I conscionable think, ‘wow, did I do that?’ It’s like, yea you did! My girl watched it a fewer years ago. I retrieve watching it, I was successful nan kitchen, but I’m watching bits of it, and I’m like, ‘oh, that’s rather good.’ Because you get infected… not to make a pun…But you get infected by its performance, and you think, ‘oh, group didn’t for illustration it.’ But past I meet group for illustration you, and I meet a batch of group — and location are galore films I’ve made group don’t deliberation this astir — but ‘Sunshine’ is 1 they really, genuinely deliberation astir and really emotion nan film.”

Read IndieWire’s interview pinch Boyle here.