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Danny Boyle May Still Be Involved with 'My Fair Lady' Remake

by Ethan Anderton
October 21, 2010
Source: The Playlist

The release of the thrilling true story of real-life mountain climber Aron Ralston's brush with death in 127 Hours is just around the corner, but everyone is still wondering what director Danny Boyle is looking to tackle next. There's been rumors of another 28 Days Later sequel and a remake of My Fair Lady, but no solid evidence to suggest either is a sure thing. Recently The Playlist (which is now located at indieWIRE) sat down with Boyle to chat about these potential projects, and elaborated on his desire to direct a musical, and some interesting observations regarding the classic Hollywood genre in other cultures. Read on!

As far as tackling a musical in general, Boyle couldn't like the idea more, "Oh I’d love to do a musical. A song-and-dance musical, with an original music, modern day story, not from Broadway not with previous music. But it’s very difficult. It’s impossible at the moment. I think it’s the Holy Grail for any film director.” So obviously the next subject turned to his previous attachment to a remake of My Fair Lady. We'd heard John Madden was replacing the director, but with no further development on the project, it's unclear what's happening. Boyle's remarks seem to indicate that he hasn't given up on the prospect. Here's what he had to say:

"That was an idea I was involved in for a while, because it’s an amazing score, probably contains some of the best songs ever written for a musical. And we were trying to rethink it a bit, both musically and visually, and make it more current in a way. But it remains something that we may not actually achieve."

In addition, Boyle goes off on a tangent that may indicate where he would like to take the unknown musical that he seems to keen on directing at some point in his career:

"Of course the place you could do a musical is India. Because in India, what they do, it’s really interesting, when they promote a movie, six weeks before the movie comes out, the songs come out, and everybody learns the songs. So when they watch the movie, they know all the songs. So you don’t have that discombobulation in a musical that you’re watching it and it’s completely fresh music. It’s got a familiarity that makes musical songs much more acceptable in the structure of a narrative if you can sing along with them. That’s why old musicals all work and modern musicals are so difficult, because we don’t have that. If we could do that. You can do that in India much more easily."

It's certainly an interesting prospect, and Boyle clearly had some fun with India's taste for singing and dancing in the streets when you look at the end credit sequence for Slumdog Millionaire featuring Dev Patel and Freida Pinto dancing with a slew of other performers in a train station. Though a musical certainly seems to be in his future, the proposed second sequel to 28 Days Later doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon since there's no script from which to work. So for now we're still waiting to hear what the award-winning director will take on next. Stay tuned.

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