28 Days Later director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland are finally reuniting to make a sequel to their zombie (or, if you prefer, infected people) movie classic. As we reporter earlier this year, this sequel is set up at Sony, is going to be called 28 Years Later – and it may even launch a whole trilogy of 28 Days Later sequels. Last year, 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy said he’d gladly be in a sequel if it was made by Boyle and Garland, and when this project was announced, it was confirmed that Murphy is on board as an executive producer… we just don’t know if he’s going to be in the movie or not. While talking to Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Murphy still didn’t reveal if he’ll be in the movie, he simply said, “Watch this space.”
Here’s Murphy’s full quote on 28 Years Later, with thanks to Coming Soon for the transcription. When asked if he could say anything about the sequel, he said, “It’s for (Danny Boyle and Alex Garland) to speak about, I suppose, but I think it’s been brewing for a while. The first movie was so important for me, as an actor. I love working with those guys. Alex has an idea. And Danny directing is just huge. Watch this space.” That “Watch this space” does sound promising…
In the original film, Murphy played bicycle courier Jim, who wakes up from a coma to find himself in an apocalyptic England that’s overrun by people who have been infected by a rage virus. Boyle and Garland went through several endings for 28 Days Later before landing on the one movie-goers saw in theatres – and that ending was the only one where Jim survived. So he’s still out there, ready to live through another rage virus nightmare 28 years later. If Boyle and Garland decide to put him in the story. As The Hollywood Reporter previously noted, “The 2002 film grossed $82.7 million globally and spawned a sequel, 2007’s 28 Weeks Later, though Boyle and Garland were only nominally involved as executive producers.”
Garland is already writing the screenplay for the sequel that will come after 28 Years Later. Of the two 28 Years Later projects currently in the works, Boyle is only planning to direct the first one. For the follow-up, he’ll be passing the helm over to someone else. Thanks to the deal with Sony, each of these new films will be receiving a theatrical release and will have budgets in the $60 million range.
Boyle and Garland are producing 28 Years Later with Bernie Bellew, original producer Andrew Macdonald, and Peter Rice, who was the head of Fox Searchlight Pictures when that company backed 28 Days Later. As mentioned, Murphy is executive producing.
Are you looking forward to 28 Years Later, and would you like to see Cillian Murphy reprise the role of Jim in the film? Let us know by leaving a comment below.