Clearly we all know how much time has passed between the worlds of 28 Days Later and 28 Years Later. And, if you don’t know, we’ll give you a second to think about it. Yes. It’s 28 years. And while that’s relatively obvious, a new interview with the director and writer of the upcoming zombie film talked about how the passage of time is crucial to setting up everything to come.
28 Years Later opens on June 20 and it’s the third film in a series originally created by writer Alex Garland (who went on to make Civil War, Ex Machina, and more) and director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire). After stepping aside for 28 Weeks Later, the pair have reunited for the first film in a proposed trilogy that picks up with the zombie outbreak three decades after it started. “It was a wholly different approach,” Boyle said in a new interview with Empire. “It was about what that 28 years gives you.”
What 28 years gives you is stability. In 28 Years Later, the world has come to terms with the zombies. They’ve learned to live with them and made them a part of their lives. The film shows that through the eyes of a small island that has isolated itself from the rest of the country. “It’s a closed and necessarily very tight community,” Boyle said. “There are very strict defense laws, obviously, to survive that long in what is effectively an ongoing hostile environment. They’ve created a successful community, as they see it.”
The community, called Holy Island, is only accessible from the mainland via a small road that only appears a few hours a day when the tide drops. So, they’re relatively safe. But the movie goes beyond that, following a father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his wife (Jodie Comer) who take their 12-year-old son (Alfie Williams) on a trip to show him the truths of the world. Things don’t go according to plan.
That story will then continue in a second film, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, directed by Nia DaCosta. It’s already been shot and a release date is set for January 16, 2026, meaning audiences will only have to wait about 28 weeks to see what happens next after 28 Years Later. As for the third film, though, Boyle will direct but only if audiences respond to the first one. “This is very narratively ambitious,” Garland told Empire. “Danny and I understood that. We tried to condense it, but its natural form felt like a trilogy.”
As for the star of the original film, and executive producer of this trilogy, Cillian Murphy, he will not be appearing in the first film. But, that doesn’t mean he won’t appear at all. “He is not in the first film, but I’m hoping there will be some Jim somewhere along the line,” producer Andrew Macdonald said to Empire. The answer points to long-standing rumors that he’ll show up in DaCosta’s film.
Together, Boyle and Garland are a formidable team. Neither had to return to the franchise they helped create. That they wanted to, and want to make it this big, gives us lots of confidence that we’re going to see something special in a few months. It all starts June 20.
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