Danny Boyle Turned Down ‘Alien: Resurrection’ Because ‘I Couldn’t Handle the CG’

Half a decade earlier launching his ain franchise pinch “28 Days Later,” Danny Boyle rejected nan chance to return connected 1 of nan biggest sci-fi film bid of each time.

The director, who is now promoting his franchise installment “28 Years Later,” told THR that he turned down directing nan 4th “Alien” film, 1997’s “Alien: Resurrection,” owed to really overmuch CG would beryllium involved.

Boyle was nan producers’ first prime to nonstop nan movie aft his breakout occurrence pinch “Shallow Grave” and “Trainspotting.” However, Jean-Pierre Jeunet directed “Alien: Resurrection” instead.

“I met Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder, who were attached to it,” Boyle said of nan early talks. “So evidently it was beautiful serious. They were wonderful. But it was nan early days of nan CG crossover. That infinitesimal wherever it was transitioning. And I couldn’t grip nan CG.”

Boyle continued of nan Ridley Scott-created franchise, “I was very passionate astir it, because I loved the ‘Alien’ idea. I conscionable abruptly had a uncommon infinitesimal of clarity, thinking, ‘You are not nan correct feline for this.’ I went disconnected to make ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ instead. That was 20th Century folks arsenic well. I didn’t do ‘Alien’ and I went and made this flop for them instead! But it’s h2o nether nan bridge.”

Boyle, though, would spell connected to activity much intimately pinch computer-generated effects connected films for illustration “Sunshine” from 2007 and “127 Hours” from 2010, nan second arriving aft he won Best Picture for “Slumdog Millionaire.”

“You’re rather arrogant aft nan Oscars, which you tin put to bully usage aliases bad use,” Boyle said. “I deliberation we put it to bully use, because [‘127 Hours’] was a movie that wouldn’t person sewage made. But [writer Simon Beaufoy and I] had a very clear thought of really to make it work, a narrow, focused measurement that we’d ne'er get retired of nan canyon. Or if we did, it was conscionable done his hallucinations. And [James] Franco was astonishing successful it. There’s a very disturbing series wherever he cuts his limb off, which is technically, brilliantly done successful position of prosthetics. But if you look astatine nan changeable connected him, he’s conscionable acting. We had rather a fewer cases of group fainting.”

So galore group fainted, successful fact, that aesculapian professionals were waiting extracurricular of screenings. “I turned up for what I thought was going to beryllium a awesome time retired astatine Pixar,” Boyle said of 1 screening of nan film. “There were ambulances extracurricular nan theater.”

He added of nan reactions to nan gruesome effects, “Everybody says, ‘yeah, that’s because you tin spot nan nervus being torn.’ And actually, I deliberation it’s because you tin spot Franco’s eyes astatine that moment.”

Read nan IndieWire question and reply pinch Boyle astir his latest feature, “28 Years Later,” here.