Sunshine is a 2007 science fiction suspense film directed by Danny Boyle from a screenplay by Alex Garland. The film follows a spaceship crew, played by an ensemble cast of Rose Byrne, Cliff Curtis, Chris Evans, Troy Garity, Cillian Murphy, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong and Michelle Yeoh, who are tasked with reigniting a dying sun. Fox Searchlight is distributing the film, which opened in the United Kingdom on 6 April 2007.
It is 2057, and the Sun is failing, causing the Earth to enter an ice age. A spacecraft, the Icarus II, with a crew of eight, is launched as a last hope, carrying a massive bomb with a thermonuclear payload equivalent to the mass of Manhattan in order to re-ignite the Sun. Seven years prior, a similar ship, Icarus I, was launched for the same mission, but contact was lost. Since all of the Earth's nuclear fissile materials have been mined for the two Icarus ships, the future of life on Earth is doomed if the mission fails.
After 16 months the mission is reaching its end. Before losing radio contact with Earth, the crew manage to send personal messages back. Whilst orbiting Mercury they discover the distress beacon of Icarus I. The crew members heatedly debate whether they should attempt a rendezvous with the lost ship. Physicist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy), who designed the bomb, is asked by Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) to decide whether to change course and approach Icarus I. Reasoning on the theoretical success of the mission, Capa decides to rendezvous with the stricken vessel in order to acquire another payload and hence provide the mission with two "last hopes."
When calculating their new course, navigator Trey (Benedict Wong) forgets to correct the heat shield's angle, damaging its sun facing side. Kaneda and Capa have to perform a risky spacewalk to repair the heat shield. Pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne) rotates the shield to facilitate the repair attempt. One consequence of the manoeuvre is the necessary loss of an unshielded communication antennae, much to the frustration of communications officer Harvey (Troy Garity). Exposed to the Sun, the antennae burns up, which unexpectedly reflects intense sunlight into the oxygen garden, a botanical garden which refreshes the ship's oxygen supply, sparking a fire and triggering an emergency response from Icarus II. The shield slowly returns to its original orientation even with Capa and Kaneda still repairing it. Cassie attempts to give the repair crew more time by overriding the computer's decision to move the shield, but the captain who is still outside belays her order. While Capa makes it back to the shield's underside, Kaneda sacrifices himself to complete repairs and is burnt by the Sun's heat.
The crew manage to extinguish the fire in the garden, but they lose a substantial amount of their oxygen reserves. The limited amount of oxygen left threatens to prevent them from reaching the Sun and makes a return trip impossible unless oxygen can be recovered from the Icarus I. Trey's guilt over setting in motion the disaster makes him suicidal and he is placed under sedation by psychiatrist Searle (Cliff Curtis).
Upon rendezvousing with Icarus I, Capa, Harvey, Searle and engineer Mace (Chris Evans) board the ship to find it lifeless. Mace finds a video suggesting the crew of Icarus I abandoned their mission. Deferring to "God's will" under the leadership of Captain Pinbacker (Mark Strong), they destroyed their computer, rendering their bomb useless and then killed themselves in a suicide pact as they huddled together to watch the sun through an unshielded window in an observation lounge. Nonetheless, the ship's oxygen garden is thriving and could allow them to restore the devastated garden on Icarus II.
The ships are then suddenly rocked by a violent movement and the airlock between them decouples. The only means of safe return to Icarus II is a solitary spacesuit, given to Capa since he is the only one able to operate the payload. Searle sacrifices himself to stay on Icarus I to manually open the hatch for the other's return. Harvey and Mace wrap themselves in thermal insulation and cling to Capa's spacesuit hoping they too can make the return to Icarus II which is 20 meters away. During the crossing Harvey is hit by a stray piece of metal and is lost in space, freezing to death, while Mace survives with severe frostbite. Meanwhile aboard the Icarus I, crew member Searle, not wishing to await a slow death by asphyxiation or freezing, calmly goes to the observation deck of the Icarus I, puts on a pair of sunglasses, and waits for the window to once more face the tremendous energies of the Sun; when it does, he is incinerated by the full energy of the solar wind from the Sun almost instantly.
The surviving crew members are confronted with a dilemma; with five crew members their oxygen reserves will not suffice for the completion of their mission. However, enough oxygen remains for four and the remaining vote that Trey should be aided with his suicide in the interest of oxygen conservation and because he seems responsible for the decoupling from Icarus I. Mace goes to carry out the grim task, but Trey had pre-empted their decision by cutting his wrists while the crew were discussing his fate.
Following a disturbing warning from the computer of an unknown fifth surviving crew member, Capa finds Pinbacker has somehow made his way onboard. Gaunt from years of rations and worshipping his 'God', Pinbacker is as insane as he appeared in Icarus I 's final video-log entry. Driven by the notion that humans should not defy God's will, he wants to stop the Icarus Project from completing their mission. Pinbacker attacks and injures Capa, before chasing him into an airlock, sealing him within it. He goes on to kill the crew's botanist Corazon (Michelle Yeoh) as she surveys the remains of the oxygen garden. He sabotages the computers, sending the ship into a blackout and rendering the payload useless, and chances upon Cassie in the darkened quarters, chasing her into the payload section. Mace manages to repair the computers' cooling system, but dies in the coolant tanks when he is trapped in the bitterly cold coolant.
With no computer control the bomb must now be released and armed manually. To free himself, Capa dons a spacesuit and destroys the airlock door, de-pressurising the Icarus II entirely. Capa decouples the pressurised payload section and manages to board it before its boosters fire, burning up the now lifeless section of Icarus II.
Inside, Capa finds Cassie, but is attacked by Pinbacker. With Cassie's help, both manage to fatally wound Pinbacker and escape. He eventually bleeds to death. Cassie is mortally wounded and urges Capa to "finish it", knowing that there are only moments left before the payload is destroyed by the Sun's surface. Capa manually arms the payload and successfully detonates the bomb. He stands between the expanding effects of the weapon and the encroaching solar surface, spending his final moment enjoying the sheer spectacle. The quantum effects local to the star combined with the massive force of the explosion, which Capa speculated could exist beforehand, slow local time long enough for Capa to reach out and touch the star's surface.
In a snow-strewn landscape on Earth, eight minutes after the Icarus II detonation, Capa's family rewatch his final message to them. They watch the dim morning sun for a sign of success. The dim star finally brightens, piercing the gloom and revealing the snow covered Sydney Opera House in the distance. Life on Earth is presumably saved, but how close the mission had been to failure will never be known to those on Earth.
Director Danny Boyle chose to have an ensemble cast for Sunshine to encourage a more democratic process, similar to the ensemble casts in Alien and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Boyle also chose to have the cast be international in order to reflect the mission's purpose "on behalf of all mankind". The space crew in the film also consisted of American/Asian nationality because of the filmmakers' belief that the American and Chinese space programs would be the most developed and economically empowered 50 years in the future. The director had also received advice that there would be advanced space programs with India and Brazil, but the advice was overlooked to avoid creating a cast that was too disparate. According to producer Andrew Macdonald, the actors were required to speak with American accents to target the U.S. audience as much as international audiences due to the budget level of the project.
To prepare the international actors for the film, Boyle had the cast undergo method acting. At the beginning of the film, the characters had been together for sixteen months, so Boyle desired to capture of a sense of togetherness among the actors by assigning them to live together. He also enrolled the cast members in space training and scuba diving, as well as watching films together, such as The Right Stuff (1983) and the documentary For All Mankind (1989). Boyle also took the cast on a tour of a nuclear submarine to comprehend claustrophobic living conditions. He also had the cast experience weightlessness in the zero G environment of an acrobatic plane. Cast members operated a Boeing 747 flight simulator and were introduced to futurologist Richard Seymour. The book Moondust by Andrew Smith, a collection of accounts of the nine living men who had walked on the moon, was assigned reading to cast members. The book had been assigned by Boyle because it reflected the psychological effect that was had on the men that traveled to the moon. The director sought to manifest the effect by having the sun and its power influence the mindsets of the ship's crew.
Cillian Murphy as Robert Capa: The physicist. Murphy described the character of Robert Capa as a silent character at the beginning who is apart from the group, and that Capa's sole understanding and operation of the bomb created "an effect on his demeanour and his dynamic within the group". Murphy worked with physicist Brian Cox to receive a better understanding of advanced physics for the role. The actor traveled to Geneva with Cox and toured CERN. Murphy also sought to understand how physicists functioned as humans, learning to copy their mannerisms. The actor also watched the thriller The Wages of Fear (1953) with Boyle to gain an understanding of the suspense in the film. Murphy said that being involved in the production of Sunshine had converted his spiritual belief from agnosticism to atheism, saying, "For me, the film ultimately is a battle between science and religion, or science instead of fundamentalism."
Rose Byrne as Cassie: The pilot. Byrne was chosen by the director for her role in Troy (2004). Byrne described Cassie as the most emotional member of the crew, "[wearing] her heart on her sleeve". Byrne considered Cassie's role among to the crew is to possess an even temperament which helps her last the journey.
Cliff Curtis as Searle: The physician and psych officer. The role of Searle was originally written to be a "slightly stiff" British character. Boyle was familiar with Curtis from Training Day (2001) and Whale Rider (2002), and Curtis's audition appealed to Boyle strongly enough to cast the actor as Searle.
Chris Evans as Mace: The engineer. Evans described his character Mace as one with a military family and background. Mace has a dry and morally uncomplicated personality. Said Evans, "[He] has a very level head which enables him to operate fairly coherently under pressure-filled situations."
Troy Garity as Harvey: The communications officer and second-in-command. Garity's previous work was unknown to Boyle, but the director was impressed enough with the actor upon meeting him that he cast Garity into the film. Garity described the character of Harvey as the only crew member who misses his family back home on Earth and attempts to hide the fact.
Hiroyuki Sanada as Kaneda: The captain. The script was originally written to have an American be the captain of the spaceship, but after receiving advice from scientists and space experts, the nationality was changed to Japanese. Sanada had been seen by the director in the film The Twilight Samurai (2002), and director Wong Kar-wai recommended the actor to Boyle when the latter sought someone to cast as the Asian captain of the ship. Sanada's character was originally called Kanada, but he asked Boyle to change the name to Kaneda, a more natural Japanese name. The character was Sanada's second English-language role in cinema, and Sanada learned different forms of English, depending on the circumstances. Sanada's base English language had a British dialect, and when the actor recited official statements as Kaneda, the dialect was in proper official English. In communicating with other characters as Kaneda, Sanada spoke with an American English accent to reflect the fictional situation of the character training with the rest at NASA
Benedict Wong as Trey: The navigator. Boyle saw Wong in Dirty Pretty Things (2002) and sought to cast the actor in Sunshine. Wong's character, Trey, was described to have a backstory as a child prodigy who creates a computer virus that brought down one-sixth of the world's computers. As a result, Trey is recruited into the space program so his genius could be applied more beneficially.
Michelle Yeoh as Corazon: The biologist. Boyle first noticed Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and after seeing her again in a more dramatic role in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), the director sought to cast her. Yeoh was the first actor to be cast into the film, and she received the privilege of choosing her role among the story's crew. Yeoh described her character as more spiritual, explaining Corazon's background, "It's the Asian influence or that she's always constantly surrounded by organic things – she's very grounded and more down-to-earth."
Mark Strong as Pinbacker: The captain of Icarus I, the previous failed attempt to reignite the sun. Pinbacker was inspired by the character Sgt. Pinback from Dark Star. The character's disfigurement from burn wounds was influenced from the injuries suffered by F1 driver Niki Lauda. Boyle described the character of Pinbacker as a representation of fundamentalism, similar to the Taliban.
In March 2005, following the completion of Millions (2004), director Danny Boyle was briefly attached to direct 3000 Degrees, a Warner Bros. project about the 1999 Worcester Cold Storage Warehouse fire in Massachusetts, but due to opposition from surviving victims and firefighters, the project did not enter production. At the same time, Boyle received a script from screenwriter Alex Garland, who had paired with Boyle for The Beach (2000) and 28 Days Later (2002). Producer Andrew Macdonald, working with Boyle and Garland, pitched the script to 20th Century Fox, who was reluctant to finance the film based on its similarities to the dismal 2002 remake Solaris. The project was instead financed by Fox's specialized film unit Fox Searchlight Pictures. Since the preliminary budget at USD$40 million was too demanding for Fox Searchlight, Macdonald sought outside financing from British lottery funds, U.K. rebates, and outside investor Ingenious Film Partners. With financing in place, Boyle entered pre-production work for Sunshine, for which he planned to commence production by the following July. Since Boyle had previously worked with Fox Searchlight on 28 Days Later, the existing relationship permitted the director with freedom in production, working in a small studio.
Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year, spent a second year preparing for production, filmed for three months, and spent a third full year editing and completing visual effects for Sunshine. After completion of filming for Sunshine, Boyle said that he would not revisit the science fiction genre, citing production as a spiritually exhausting experience. The director said making the film had conquered his fear of the difficulty encountered in producing a science fiction film, and that he would move on from the genre.
Screenwriter Alex Garland was inspired to write Sunshine based on scientific ideas about the heat death of the universe, specifically "an article projecting the future of mankind from a physics-based, atheist perspective," according to Garland. The article was from an American scientific periodical, and Garland had wondered about what would result from the sun's death. "What interested me was the idea that it could get to a point when the entire planet's survival rests on the shoulders of one man, and what that would do to his head," said the screenwriter. Garland brought the script to director Danny Boyle, who enthusiastically took up the project due to his long-time desire to direct a science fiction film in space. Boyle and Garland worked on the script for a year, creating 35 drafts in their experimenting.
The director also considered the story of Sunshine as an appropriate counterintuitive approach for the contemporary issue of global warming, with the death of the sun being a threat. Boyle described the film's villain as based on light, explaining, "That's quite a challenge because the way you generate fear in cinema is darkness." The director also sought to have the characters experience a psychological journey in which each person is worn mentally, physically, and existentially and is experiencing doubt in their faiths.
The story was also written in part to reflect the existing brilliance yet arrogance of real-life scientists when the film's scientists are presented with the crisis that threatens Earth. The time period of the story, 50 years in the future, was chosen to enable the level of technology to advance to the ability to travel to the sun, but to simultaneously keep a feel of familiarity for the audience. Scientific advisers, futurists, and people who developed products for the future were consulted to shape an idea of the future.
To shape the science of the film, Boyle and Garland hired scientist advisers, including NASA employees and astrophysicists. One physicist, Brian Cox of University of Manchester, was hired to advise the cast and crew. The physicist gave regular lectures to the film's cast members about solar physics. Cox also advised the filmmakers to scale down the nuclear weapon in the film from the mass of the Moon to the size of Manhattan. In the film's backstory, a Q-Ball enters the Earth's sun and begins to eat it away. According to Cox, the sun would not be dense enough in real life to stop a Q-ball, but filmmakers took creative licensing in writing the backstory.
Boyle originally included romantic subplots, including a sex scene planned between the characters Capa (Murphy) and Cassie (Byrne) in the ship's oxygen garden. However, the director considered the attempt for relationships in space too "embarrassing" and excluded the subplots. Boyle further distanced the characters from possible relationships by ensuring that the cast members wore little to no make-up to avoid any romantic overtures.
Filming for Sunshine took place at 3 Mills Studios in East London. An elaborate set was constructed, containing eight stages, 17 sets, and detailed models. The filmmakers employed three film units. Filming began on 23 August 2005, lasting for 15 weeks, with August and September being difficult months due to the heat and the requirement to wear suits. Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler chose to film in anamorphic format to capture a physical sense of the light. "We shot certain sequences in a very dark environment, which you get used to, so when the Sun plays a role, we wanted the audience to have a physical reaction to it," Kuchler said. Due to filming with the actors taking place on a stage, director Danny Boyle constructed live effects so the actors could realistically respond to computer-generated effects that were later implemented.
To increase the sense of claustrophobia in Sunshine, Boyle refused to cut back to scenes on Earth, a traditional technique in most films about the planet in jeopardy. The director also kept a sense of confinement in Sunshine by avoiding filming the primary ship, Icarus II, on the outside. He also attempted to avoid filming a star field backgrounds, attempting to have the background be pitch black, but was forced to keep stars in the background to keep a sense of movement.
A scene in a snow-covered park with three stone monoliths was a homage to a similar scene in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The scene was filmed at a May day memorial in Stockholm, Sweden. Another scene that involved Stockholm was one of the closing moments of Sunshine. The Sydney Opera House in Sydney, Australia was chosen by Boyle out of six monuments that he considered universally recognisable. The Opera House, according to the director, possessed a "heat-thing" that made the location his choice. The snowy territory of the final scene was shot in Stockholm, Sweden, and a composite shot was created combining Stockholm's background and the Sydney Opera House. An slightly different ending was shot after the original ending as an experimental debate ending, but alternate ending was not chosen due to the director feeling that it did not fit the film. The alternate ending will be available on the DVD for Sunshine.
The claustrophobic environment in the film was inspired by Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (1981). Boyle also cited inevitable visual influences from science fiction films in space by Andrei Tarkovsky (Solaris in 1972), Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968), and Ridley Scott (Alien in 1979). Influences from other science fiction films also included Paul W. S. Anderson's Event Horizon (1997), John Carpenter's Dark Star (1974), and Douglas Trumbull's Silent Running (1971).
Filmmakers consulted NASA to design the scientific aspect of the film. Technical requirements for the ship were provided in order to be feasible. An oxygen garden was also recommended to provide oxygen for the ship and to enable a ship's crew to grow their own food rather than rely on pre-packaged food. Boyle met with a department within NASA that was focused on the psychology of deep-space travel, and the department advised the director to include Earth routines like preparing one's own food, eating it, and cleaning up after were activities crucial to a traveler's sanity.
The gold-leaf reflective shield in Sunshine was influenced by NASA's satellites that are sent out to deflect heat and radiation. Director Danny Boyle chose to design the space suits to be gold along these lines, despite encouragement to model the suits after the NASA design. The helmets of the film's suits were designed to have cameras mounted in them, which created a sense of claustrophobia useful for the actors in their performances. The helmets were also limited to a slit for visibility instead of a full-face visor as further consideration to protect the characters from radiation in space. According to Boyle, the funnel shape of the helmet was influenced by the character Kenny from South Park.
Boyle included "Icarus" in the name of the film's ship to continue a theme of bleakness, saying that no Americans would give their ship such a fated name. According to the director, "They'd call it Spirit of Hope or Ship of Destiny. They'd call it something optimistic... in America they would sacrifice all plausibility, because there would be hope." The ship's exterior was also designed to look like an oil tanker. The ship's interior was influenced by the design of a nuclear submarine that filmmakers had visited in Scotland, though the space was larger due to NASA's advice that smaller quarters would affect astronauts' sanity. Cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler provided an idea to render the interior of the ship in the colors of grey, blue, and green, with no reference to orange, red, or yellow. Scenes were intended to be shot inside the ship at long intervals, and when the shot changed to the outside, yellow-starved audiences would be penetrated by sunlight. The visual effects of the sunlight were based on photographs from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory project.
The corpses of burn victims in the film were modeled on the Pompeii victims from the Mount Vesuvius eruption. The burn disfigurement of one Sunshine character, Pinbacker, was influenced from the injuries suffered by F1 driver Niki Lauda.
During the post-production process, Boyle hired one visual effects company, London's Moving Picture Co., to work on the film's 750 visual effects. The assignment of a single company was contrary to the industry trend of hiring multiple vendors to work on a film's effects. Boyle chose one company for ease of quality control, though the decision resulted in a prolonged production process.
When the film was mostly complete, director Danny Boyle provided the film to the band Underworld, who improvised on it. Karl Hyde of Underworld was influenced by the music of avant garde composer György Ligeti, which had been used in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Lux Aeterna by Ligeti particularly influenced Hyde. When Underworld finished recording, the band sent its work to composer John Murphy, who completed the score, resulting in a hybrid between Underworld and Murphy.
In 2005, director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan sought to film a comedy in space. Winterbottom, who had collaborated with cinematographer Alwin H. Kuchler and production designer Mark Tildesley in the past, found out that the two crew members were working on Boyle's Sunshine in London. Winterbottom contacted producer Andrew Macdonald and inquired about the possibility of filming his comedy on the set at night when Sunshine filming was finished for the day. Macdonald initially agreed, but due to concern about damage to the set, the producer told Winterbottom that he could use the set after Sunshine completed filming. Winterbottom, Coogan, and Coogan's collaborator Patrick Marber worked to flesh out the story for the space comedy. The studio Paramount Pictures had expressed interest in financing the comedy, but as time passed, the set was not made available to Winterbottom, despite Macdonald's assurance.
Sunshine was originally slated for a theatrical release in October 2006, but the release was later changed to March 2007. The film was finally set to debut in April 2007. Sunshine made its world premiere at Fantasy Filmfest in Bochum, Germany on 23 March 2007. The film was commercially released in the home country of the United Kingdom on 6 April 2007, grossing £1,021,063 in 407 theatres for its opening weekend. The film also opened the same weekend in seven other markets, performing most strongly in Hong Kong ($267,000), Taiwan ($442,000) and Singapore ($198,000). On the weekend of 13 April 2007, Sunshine opened in 22 more markets, garnering $5.3 million for the weekend. Its French debut was the strongest with $1.2 million in 380 theatres, but the film only had average performance in New Zealand ($120,149 from 36 theatres), Switzerland ($60,285 from 11 theatres) and Finland ($42,745 from 15 theatres). The following weekend of 20 April 2007, the film expanded to 44 markets, garnering $5.9 million for a total of $18.6 million thus far, considered a disappointing amount. Sunshine had poor débuts in Spain ($1 million), Germany ($638,549), and Italy ($453,000). By the end of April, Sunshine had opened to most markets, with the notable exception of the United States, for which a release date had yet to be established at the time. The film's theatrical run in the UK lasted twelve weeks, totaling £3,175,911. As of 16 July 2007, Sunshine had grossed $27,782,393 internationally.
The film was originally slated to be released in the United States in September 2007, but the release date was moved earlier to July 2007. Sunshine was released in the United States and Canada at select locations in Los Angeles, New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and Toronto on 20 July 2007. Sunshine opened in 10 theaters in the United States and grossed $242,964 over the opening weekend. The film was released everywhere else in the two countries the following weekend of 27 July 2007. In the USA it failed to break into the top 10 and charted at Number 13.
Sunshine rates 70% out of 98 reviews at the movie review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. The film has received Rotten Tomatoes' Cream of the Crop rating of 54% out of 22 reviews from major news outlets. Below 60% is regarded as rotten. On another aggregator, Metacritic, Sunshine received a 65% rating based on 28 reviews.
Critically, the film was moderately well received in the UK However most critics found the last reels disappointing, suggesting the switch to 'slasher movie' mode might have been inserted to appease teenage audiences.
The film's scientific content has been criticised by specialists. The science periodical New Scientist claimed that the nuclear weapon used by the crew would be woefully inadequate to reignite the dying Sun (millions would be required), and found the film to be confusing and disappointing, while solar physicist Anjana Ahuja, a columnist for The Times, commented on the lack of source of artificial gravity onboard the spacecraft (present in the original screenplay, but omitted from production), claiming "Danny Boyle could have achieved the same level of scientific fidelity in Sunshine by giving a calculator to a schoolboy". Ahuja was, however, more positive about the psychological aspect of the film, joking that "the psychology of extended space travel is covered well, although we could have done with a space bonk".
Two previous Boyle contributors, electronic music duo Underworld and composer John Murphy, collaborated to provide the film's original music score, with Manchester band I Am Kloot contributing their track Avenue Of Hope.
According to the official Sunshine website there are hints that the soundtrack may not be released until after the 20th July once the American and Canadian launch of the film has taken place. |
