Everything we know about ‘28 Years Later’ and its proposed sequels
Released in 2002, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later remains one of the greatest zombie movies ever made. Set one month after The Rage Virus caused the complete collapse of civilisation in the UK, the post-apocalyptic survival thriller follows bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) after he wakes up from a coma and tries to make sense of the end of the world. A sequel (28 Weeks Later) followed in 2007, with fans speculating about a third film ever since.
Last year, 28 Years Later was finally announced. Directed by Boyle and written by Alex Garland (the team behind the original), the threequel will also see the return of Murphy as an executive producer and kick-off a a new cinematic trilogy. Here’s everything we know so far…
Is there a release date for 28 Years Later?
Summer 2025
Sony has confirmed it has picked up 28 Years Later with the studio aiming to release the sequel on June 20, 2025. Filming began in May 2024 and production has only just wrapped, so delays are always possible but nothing has been announced so far. It has been reported that the film has been shot with a series of adapted iPhone 15 though.
A teaser poster has also been revealed featuring the caption “Time didn’t heal anything.”
Is there a trailer for 28 Years Later?
Prepare to be creeped out
A first-look teaser trailer for 28 Years Later was finally shared in December. The terrifying, two-minute video starts with the very start of the outbreak before skipping forward. Turns out life post-apocalypse is a gruelling, bloody nightmare. Check it out below
Who will star in 28 Years Later?
Cillian Murphy is back…kinda
After a lot of speculation about the return of original star Cillian Murphy as Jim, and that apparent sighting of him as a zombie in the trailer, 28 Years Later’s producer has confirmed he won’t appear in the new flick – though he may appear in future films. “We wanted him to be involved and he wanted to be involved. He is not in the first film, but I’m hoping there will be some Jim somewhere along the line,” producer Andrew Macdonald told Empire. However Murphy will serve as executive producer.
Speaking to NME in 2022 about a potential return to the franchise, Murphy said: “I think there’s a problem with that, in that I’m 20 years older… but every time I do bump into Danny or Alex I always mention it. Because I showed it to my kids recently, some Halloween about four or five years ago, and they loved it. It really stands up, which is amazing for a film that’s 20 years old. So yeah, I love the idea and it’s very appealing to me.”
#28YearsLater pic.twitter.com/lQld5QXZ0W
— 28 Years Later Movie (@28YearsLaterMov) December 6, 2024
It has been confirmed that Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes will all star in 28 Years Later, while Jack O’Connell will have a supporting role before taking the lead in the reported sequel. “The original was so loved, so I’m trying not to think of that too hard. I’m not putting too much expectation on myself,” Comer told Elle, before revealing she was watching clips of Cheryl Cole to help her nail a Geordie accent for the film. No further details about their characters have been revealed so far.
What have creators said about 28 Years Later?
It’s a coming-of-age British zombie movie
Speaking to NME in 2022, Boyle confirmed that Garland had written a script for a potential sequel to 28 Weeks Later called 28 Months Later with a “lovely idea” at the centre of it. “It feels like a very good time actually,” he continued. “It’s funny, I hadn’t thought about it until you just said it, and I remembered ‘Bang, this script!’ which is again set in England, very much about England.” It’s been reported that 28 Years Later is being filmed in England, so perhaps a reworked version of that script is being used for the long-awaited sequel.
“Probably the single most important thing is I had an idea. I had a specific idea that felt like a story worth telling,” Garland told Inverse about his return to the franchise.
While the original 28 Days Later was heavily inspired by sci-fi horror Day Of The Triffids, Garland has claimed he “ripped of” Ken Loach’s 1969 coming-of-age drama Kes for this sequel. “A very unexpected thing to rip off in a zombie movie [but] the script I’ve delivered and Kes both are focused around the experience of a young lad,” Garland explained to Alamo Drafthouse. The film will also explore “slightly more subtle things to do with landscape and humans and nature”.
“It’s to do with the passage of time, and thinking about what effect the passage of time would have,” Garland explained during an appearance on the ReelBlend podcast. “Is it what you would traditionally call a post-apocalyptic state? Or has something else begun to manifest? Time is really at the core of the engine of the film.”
“This is Danny at his best, combined with a very commercial genre, like we had with Edgar Wright and Baby Driver,” Rothman said of the film. “Sometimes when you put a real signature director into a commercial arena, it elevates it.”
What’s the story?
Newcomer Ralph Fiennes might have accidentally revealed the storyline…
Ralphy Fiennes has joined the cast for 28 Years Later and may have accidentally revealed the threequel’s synopsis. “Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities,” he said during an interview.
“And it centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.”
That plot has since been confirmed by the rest of the 28 Years Later crew. Speaking to Empire, Danny Boyle confirmed that the rest of the world has largely avoided the zombie apocalypse, leaving the UK to fend for itself. The film introduces us to Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Jamie, Jodie Comer’s Isla and their 12-year-old son Spike (Alfie Williams) living on the relative safety of a secluded island. However Spike is taken on a rite-of-passage trip to the mainland, which is where things start to unravel.
Will there be a sequel?
Yes, at least two
28 Years Later is the spiritual successor to 28 Days Later, with Garland and Boyle only serving as executive producers on Weeks. It’s also set to kick-off a new trilogy. “A whole idea for a trilogy just sort of came – bing! – into my head,” Garland told the Guardian. “It makes me really question what creativity is. I feel like an observer, a lot of the time.”
The second film, The Bone Temple, was filmed back-to-back with 28 Years Later and is set to be released on January 16, 2026. It was directed by Nia DaCosta (Candyman, The Marvels) while Boyle will return to direct the third film in the trilogy. That final movie doesn’t currently have a release date and work won’t begin until after 28 Years Later hits cinemas.
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Ali Shutler
NME
