“I’d have a different career if people saw…” This SF nugget was a box office flop, but it’s one of Chris Evans’ best films.

Chris Evans is one of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood today. He owes his fame, among other things, to his years as Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, for Marvel. This kind of notoriety has since allowed her to hand-pick her roles and choose the ones she really wanted to portray. However, during his first Marvel, the actor returned to one of the films he was most proud of, a film that, as Espinov recalls, had not yet had success…

“In 2057, an international team of astronauts is sent on a dangerous mission to revive the dying sun with a nuclear fission bomb.”: Welcome to Sunshine (2007), a sci-fi 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 Garith.

If all of this is exciting enough, the box office results of the feature film will not be satisfactory – although the press and those who have seen it will appreciate it. Faced with a budget of $40 million, the acclaimed film will only take in $32 million worldwide.

If Sunshine didn’t have the expected success, it didn’t stop Danny Boyle from finding fame with his next film, Slumdog Millionaire, which won the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. At the same time, the actors moved on, although some of them, like Chris Evans, were still disappointed that the film never got its due. In 2011, the same year that Captain America: The First Avenger changed his life, the actor spoke to Moviefone, admitting that it was the service he was most satisfied with and expressing his disappointment at the film’s commercial failure.

I love the sun. Probably ten people saw it. All my good films, no one has seen them. Everyone goes to see Fantastic Four, but no one sees Sunshine. I would have a different career if people saw it. I love that movie. I love Danny Boyle. I love this experience and I love this casting. It was one of those movies that I just fell in love with.

A few years later, Chris Evans would have a bit more luck at the box office with another famous sci-fi film, this time directed by Bong Joon-ho: we renamed the iconic Snowpiercer, Le Transperceneige (2013). The actor’s career has completely developed since then and you know the rest.

Her latest film, Ghosted, a romantic action comedy in which she reprises her role as Ana de Armas after the excellent Knives Out (2019), can be seen on Apple TV+.

Danny Boyle’s Sunshine can be (re)discovered streaming on Disney+.