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 reported three weeks ago, this sequel is going to be called 28 Years Later – and may even launch a whole trilogy of 28 Days Later sequels. We know for sure that Garland will be writing a second film. Studios and streamers have spent the last three weeks scrambling and bidding, hoping to secure the rights to make this movie / these movies with Boyle and Garland… and now The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed that the bidding war has a winner. The situation came down to Warner Bros. and Sony, and Sony has emerged the victor.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The deal details are unavailable. Each movie would have a budget in the $60 million range but it’s unclear how goalposts or compensation may have changed during the high-stakes negotiations. A theatrical release was of great import to the filmmakers.” Sony had an edge in this race due to the fact that it’s headed up by Tom Rothman, who used to be at Fox and worked with Boyle on eight different movies there.
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.
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. 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy is on board as executive producer, and may end up acting in the film as well.
As The Hollywood Reporter notes, Murphy starred in 28 Days Later as a man who wakes up from a coma, alone in a hospital, only to discover the outside world had been overtaken by the undead 28 days earlier. “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.”
Are you excited to hear that 28 Years Later and at least one more sequel beyond that are finally happening? What do you think of the project ending up at Sony? Let us know by leaving a comment below.