“I would have had a different career if people had seen it…” This SF nugget was a box office failure, yet it is one of Chris Evans’ best films

In 2011, Chris Evans returned to one of the favorite films of his career: an acclaimed box office failure which, according to him, would have given him a completely different career…

Chris Evans is one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood today. His fame, he owes it, among other things, to his years spent in the skin of Steve Rogers, alias Captain America, for Marvel. Such notoriety has since allowed him to handpick his roles and choose those he really wanted to embody. At the time of his first Marvel, however, the actor returned to one of the films of which he was most proud, a film which, as Espinof recalls, had not yet met with success…

In 2057, a team of international astronauts is sent on a dangerous mission to revive the dying Sun with a nuclear fission bomb.”: welcome to Sunshine (2007), a science fiction film directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland (28 days later, Ex Machina), with a crazy cast: Chris EvansCillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, Mark Strong or even Cliff Curtis and Troy Garity.

If it all turned out to be rather thrilling, the feature film’s box office results won’t be satisfactory – although the press and those who have seen it praise it, however. Facing a budget of $40 million, the acclaimed film will earn a mere $32 million in worldwide revenue.

Fox Searchlight Pictures

If Sunshine did not have the expected success, that did not prevent Danny Boyle from meeting the glory with his following film, Slumdog Millionaire, which won the prize for best picture and best director at the Oscars. And the cast, meanwhile, moved on, although some of them, like Chris Evans, were still disappointed that the movie never got its due. In 2011, the same year that Captain America: First Avenger changed his life, the actor spoke on the subject to Moviefone, admitting that it was the service he felt most satisfied with and expressing his disappointment with the commercial failure of the film.

I love Sunshine. […] Maybe ten people saw it. All my good movies, nobody sees them. Everyone goes to see Fantastic Four, but no one sees Sunshine. I would have a different career if people had seen it. I love that movie. I love Danny Boyle. I love this experience and I love this casting. It was one of those films, through and through, that I’m just in love with.

A few years later, Chris Evans will have a little more luck at the box office with another acclaimed science fiction film, this time directed by Bong Joon-ho: we named the cult Snowpiercer, Le Transperceneige (2013). The career of the actor has since completely evolved and the rest, you know it.

His latest film, Ghosted, a romantic action comedy in which he once again plays the role of Ana de Armas after the excellent Knives Out (2019) can be found streaming on Apple TV+.

Sunshine by Danny Boyle can be (re)discovered in streaming on Disney+.

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“I would have had a different career if people had seen it…” This SF nugget was a box office failure, yet it is one of Chris Evans’ best films