Danny Boyle is back with his new movie, 28 Years Later, and he has been talking about his career, which includes the first movie in the series, 28 Days Later. However, he has also been discussing other films in his career, including his Oscar-winning Bollywood hit Slumdog Millionaire. In a recent interview, Boyle said he doesn’t think someone like him could make that movie today.

Boyle was speaking to The Guardian about 28 Years Later when they began to discuss Slumdog Millionaire. The movie is a loose adaptation of the novel Q&A by Indian author Vikas Swarup. Dev Patel stars as a young man who grew up in the slums of Mumbai. He goes on a game show that is the Indian equivalent of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, hoping to raise his position in life and win over his childhood sweetheart.

However, when discussing making the film, Boyle said that he couldn’t make it today because of cultural appropriation:

“Yeah, we wouldn’t be able to make that now. And that’s how it should be. It’s time to reflect on all that. We have to look at the cultural baggage we carry and the mark that we’ve left on the world.”

When explaining what he meant, he said that they never made a movie that pushed their beliefs onto the Indian people. Instead, he had the best of intentions to make the movie, using a mostly Indian crew. Even with this mode of thinking, he admits that he was still telling another culture’s story:

“You’re still an outsider. It’s still a flawed method. That kind of cultural appropriation might be sanctioned at certain times. But at other times it cannot be. I mean, I’m proud of the film, but you wouldn’t even contemplate doing something like that today. It wouldn’t even get financed. Even if I was involved, I’d be looking for a young Indian film-maker to shoot it.”

What This Means For Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire Was Great, But It Could Have Been Better

Danny Boyle’s entire point is that movies like Slumdog Millionaire need to be made, but they need to be in the hands of a filmmaker from that culture. With the success and pull that Boyle now has, he could still work as a producer on the movie, but he would want to ensure that he hires an Indian filmmaker to come in and make the movie. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been great about this, using a Black crew on Black Panther and an Asian crew on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

It is also important to see filmmakers like Ryan Coogler making a movie like Sinners because he understands the themes that are important in a film like that. Danny Boyle did a fantastic job making Slumdog Millionaire, and it deserved all the praise it received, as well as its Oscars. However, Boyle knows that it could have been even better if an Indian filmmaker had made it instead.

Our Take On Slumdog Millionaire & Cultural Appropriation

Hollywood Is Finally Making Better Creative Decisions In Their Movies

This mode of thinking is refreshing in Hollywood. For many years, there were debates about cultural appropriation in films, with Spike Lee a proponent of Black filmmakers making films for their culture, while white filmmakers don’t have the background and knowledge to do it right. It is seen in today’s filmmaking world, where Ryan Coogler makes a brilliant movie about Black people living in the Jim Crow South. Danny Boyle agrees that he would rather see an Indian filmmaker make a film like Slumdog Millionaire, which shows that Hollywood is finally understanding the importance of using the right people in movies that tackle important themes.