Danny Boyle’s least favourite kind of cinema experience: “I think it may be a phase”
For around 130 years or so, the experience of going to the cinema has been essentially the same for every generation. You pay your money, you sit in rows of seats with people you don’t know, and a film is projected onto a giant screen in front of you. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But that hasn’t stopped people trying to mess with it, as 28 Years Later director Danny Boyle knows all too well.
Aside from charging the equivalent of a down payment on a car for a Coke and some Skittles, cinema companies have tried all kinds of ways to squeeze extra cash out of people over the years, from seats with baffling electric directional controls to various types of surround sound to even spraying customers in the face with mist in order to simulate rain.
Some of it, like IMAX, is pretty awesome to be fair and adds to the overall experience. Some of it (producing weird smells to accompany what you’re watching) isn’t. Personally, I also don’t want to be shaken around in my seat pretending I’m in a T Rex’s mouth while enjoying Jurassic Park.
3D technology, on the other hand, has been around for a long time now, as far back as 1922 in fact, when a film called The Power of Love used red/green lenses and a dual-projector, although it didn’t go mainstream until the 1950s.
Boyle’s latest film, 2025’s 28 Years Later did have some tech involved, in fact some of the scenes that made it to final cut were even shot on an iPhone 15 pro, and when the zombie follow up was released you could enjoy it in something called 4DX (those shaky seats essentially) which I’d imagine makes sprinting away from an undead person mildly more thrilling.
But Boyle is certainly not a fan of 3D, once telling The Telegraph: “I don’t use 3D. I’m a spectacle wearer, so I hate going to 3D movies because you have to wear two pairs of spectacles, which makes you feel like even more of a prat.”
Adding, “You know how everybody feels a bit of a prat wearing the 3D spectacles – you, as a spectacle wearer, feel a double prat. So, I don’t know if 3D will survive, to be honest, personally. I think it may be a phase.”
There has definitely been a sizable drop-off in the number of 3D movies being shown in cinemas since the peak of the late 2000s, when the dawn of big-budget CGI superhero films was taking hold alongside seemingly endless animated films for kids. These days, you won’t see many of them down at the local multiplex, and the days of overflowing bins teeming with discarded Ali G-style specs are long gone.
Certainly, 3D technology at home was a quickly dying fad; TV manufacturers lost billions after investing in putting it in sets only for people to realise pretty fast that they couldn’t be bothered to sit watching Emmerdale with some sunglasses on.
But the novelty of having stuff flying about your face hasn’t faded entirely, and movies like James Cameron’s recent Avatar film, Fire and Ash, are still being presented in 3D, with the upcoming blockbuster sequel, Avengers: Doomsday, more than likely to be available in the format too.
Just don’t bank on meeting Danny Boyle in the queue beforehand.
