More than two decades after 28 Days Later, director Danny Boyle is making another horror film about a devastating virus. 28 Years Later will be released in theaters on Thursday and is the beginning of a brand new trilogy. Will lead actor Cillian Murphy return?
The timeline of the 28 films is confusing for many. The first film, 28 Days Later, was released in 2002. It tells the story of Jim (Murphy), a bike courier who falls into a coma after an accident. When he wakes up 28 days later in an abandoned hospital in London, the city is completely deserted.
What he doesn’t know yet: a deadly virus called Rage has the whole country in its grip. The virus, which was developed in a laboratory where it was tested on chimpanzees, turns people into violent creatures at lightning speed.
Boyle’s first grim and raw horror film was an unexpected hit. A sequel was not long in coming: 28 Weeks Later was released in 2007. But Boyle himself was working on other projects, and this time the direction was provided by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. This film is a stand-alone story and follows a different group of survivors, 28 weeks after the outbreak.
And now there is 28 Years Later, which – as the title suggests – takes place 28 years after the start of the pandemic. This time with the original creators: Boyle is directing again, and Alex Garland (the writer of the first part) is also involved again.
Boyle previously thought there was no need for another installment at all. “But one day I was invited to a Q&A after a screening of 28 Days Later,” Boyle says in the Next Best Picture Podcast. “It surprised me that after all these years the cinemas were still packed and everyone was on the edge of their seat. Then Alex and I started thinking about new films.”
Boyle and Garland didn’t just want to make a sequel. “We really only wanted to do it if there was a strong new idea,” Boyle explains in Vanity Fair. “And there were only two things I absolutely wanted in the film: Brexit and the Teletubbies.”
The iconic children’s series with the colorful figures also appears in the trailer, but otherwise the video reveals little about the plot. We see a remote island where a small community lives, cut off from the mainland and the infected people. The main roles are for Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes.
The choice for an island was deliberate, says Boyle. “I didn’t want to use an abandoned London again. It feels different after COVID. I had the idea that we had to approach it completely differently.” He also approached the virus differently than in previous films. “After years of hiding, survivors will also take risks.”
Not only is the approach renewed in terms of content, but the film is also visually different. “We shot a large part of the film with iPhones,” says Boyle. “We wanted to film in very remote locations, without disturbing those locations with all kinds of heavy equipment.”
28 Years Later is the beginning of a new trilogy. The second part, 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple, has already been recorded according to the main actors. The direction there is in the hands of Nia DaCosta (Candyman, The Marvels), with Boyle as executive producer. For the third film, Boyle himself will return as director.
But what about Jim, fans of the first hour are wondering. About Murphy, Boyle told IndieWire in January: “He gets a very satisfying introduction in the second film. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that he will play an important role.” The Irish actor is already involved in the first part of the new trilogy as an executive producer. Whether other characters from previous films will return is not yet known.