Exclusive: Henry Cavill In Talks For 28 Days Later Director’s New Sci-Fi Movie, Plot Revealed
Henry Cavill is in talks to make a sci-fi movie titled The Oasis with Danny Boyle.
Henry Cavill is in negotiations to star in The Oasis, a new science fiction film from acclaimed British filmmaker Danny Boyle. According to our trusted and proven sources, the Academy Award-winning director and the former Superman may team up for a film about a scientist who makes a miraculous discovery in the deep desert and then must protect it from outside sources. The Oasis will be produced by Universal Pictures, the studio behind several of Danny Boyle’s most recent theatrical films.
If all goes well at the bargaining table, The Oasis will star Henry Cavill as a researcher who discovers an entirely new form of life somewhere in a deep desert (the oasis, get it?) and finds himself having to protect it from destruction and/or exploitation. Given that Cavill is currently best known for action-oriented roles like Superman and The Witcher’s Geralt of Rivera, it will be interesting to see if The Oasis portrays his character as a two-fisted man of science in the Indiana Jones mold or if the actor is trying to mix things up a bit.
The Oasis would be Henry Cavill and Danny Boyle’s first project together, but the former Witcher could certainly do a lot worse in terms of filmmakers to work with. Boyle first exploded into the global film scene with the 1996 dark heroin comedy Trainspotting, which was also the breakout film for Ewan McGregor. Since then, Boyle has worked in a dizzying array of genres, from the skewed romantic comedy of A Life Less Ordinary to the groundbreaking fast-zombie horror 28 Days Later to the Oscar-winning coming-of-age story Slumdog Millionaire.
However, there are two films in Danny Boyle’s filmography that are likely most relevant for his potential work with Henry Cavill on The Oasis. The first is his 2000 movie The Beach, which starred a post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio and was positioned as a major leap forward for the then-up-and-coming director. While the movie was a commercial success, it fared less well with critics, and more importantly, was notorious for the environmental devastation that the production inflicted on its Thailand filming locations.
Since then, Danny Boyle has reportedly actively worked to minimize environmental damage with his film productions, so a movie about precious life in a desert needing protection from rapacious outsiders certainly seems on brand. Similarly, his 2007 science fiction Sunshine focused on global climate concerns and the place of human life in the cosmos, so there seem to be some potential similarities there too.
Danny Boyle’s most recent film was the oddball romantic comedy Yesterday, which dared to ask the question of what would the world be like if the Beatles had never existed and how that would specifically affect Ed Sheeran. It will be quite the change-up to make a science fiction movie with Henry Cavill in the middle of a desert, but Boyle has always been known for that. We hope that discussions go well with Universal.
