28 Months Later Is Alive In Discussions Between Danny Boyle And Alex Garland
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One of the most critically acclaimed zombie movies ever to exist, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later was a stark and gorgeous triumph, ushering in a new wave of fast-as-shit undead threats and paving the way for the more action-oriented sequel 28 Weeks Later. All these years later, people are still clamoring for a third entry in the film, and although optimism for such a project has been negligible, screenwriter Alex Garland has confirmed he and Boyle are starting to give serious consideration to 28 Months Later. Somebody find me some rage-filled monkeys to dance with.
Garland, who is busy promoting his directorial debut Ex Machina, stopped by the London offices of IGN and shared some of the most exciting news that could ever hit the world of sci-fi horror. Here’s how he put it:
We just started talking about it seriously. We’ve got an idea. Danny and Andrew [Macdonald, producer] and I have been having quite serious conversations about it so it is a possibility. There’s a whole bunch of reasons why it’s complicated, which are boring so I won’t go into, but there’s a possibility.
Okay, so I guess a more exciting thing for Garland to say would be, “We’re past the conversations and the movie is getting made this week,” but I’m trying to remain logical here. When Boyle last talked about the project, he said the odds were against a sequel, even using actual odds as his argument. And considering his post-28 Days Later career saw him turn into more of a prestigious, Oscar-winning director, that wasn’t too surprising.
But Garland has remained in a genre oasis, with Never Let Me Go and Dredd serving as his major projects after he wrote the gorgeously baffling Sunshine for Boyle in 2007. Should Ex Machina turn into any kind of a hit, you can bet 28 Months Later will look like an even bigger draw for everyone involved, assuming the story is perfect.
Though it’s not quite all good news, as Garland said his role in the sequel would probably lean more on executive producing than screenwriting, but again, it’s too early to tell what will happen. Here’s what he had to say about the title, with tongue firmly in cheek:
It’s more likely going to be 28 Months than 28 Years. 28 Years gives you one more place to go. 28 Decades is probably taking the piss.
I mean, they could always make it 29 Weeks Later, or Roughly 7 Years Later. At this point, there are so many hogshit zombie movies out there that I’m willing to take whatever Garland and Boyle have for us.
Find out if Garland has the proper filmmaking chops when Ex Machina hits theaters here in the States on April 10, though it’ll be released in the U.K. next week, on January 21.
