28 Years Later Finally Happening, Here’s All We Know
2003 brought us one of the best post-apocalyptic horror movies of all time: 28 Days Later. Credited by many for single-handedly reinvigorating the zombie genre, the low-budget film quickly became a critical and commercial success, and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later, saw similar success in 2007. 20 years later, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland are reuniting to give us the sequel we’ve all been patiently waiting for in the form of 28 Years Later.
Humanity 28 Years After The Rage Virus Swept The Globe
It would have been a little more poetic if we truly had to wait 28 years for 28 Years Later to finally materialize, but who are we to complain? The important takeaway is that we finally get to see how society recovered from the rage virus over this significant time span. For those of you who don’t remember, 28 Weeks Later’s final scene showed us that society was once again on the verge of collapse after the quarantine zone was breached and decimated by rage-infested humans.
A New Trilogy In Development?
If you’re still rereading the first two paragraphs because you’re just as shocked and excited as we are, you may want to take a couple of deep breaths to prepare for even more good news. 28 Years Later won’t just be a single new installment to the franchise, but possibly one of three.
Considering how much ground will need to be covered to fill us in on how society has further deteriorated (or maybe even recovered) over the past 28 years, it makes sense that there are currently talks of multiple sequels. We’ll have to wait for further developments before it’s confirmed that we’ll actually bear witness to three more films, but it’s an exciting prospect nonetheless.
Danny Boyle And Alex Gardland Returning
As of this writing, Danny Boyle will be directing the first installment of 28 Years Later. What’s more, Alex Garland, who wrote the screenplay for 28 Weeks Later, will be writing the screenplays. Financially speaking, it’s been reported that each possibly sequel installment will have a budget of $75 million, which is certainly an upgrade compared to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, which had budgets of $8 million and $15 million, respectively.
How 28 Years Later Can Succeed
Given the high-budget nature of the upcoming 28 Weeks Later movies, we hope that these future installments will have the same amount of grit and frenetic energy that 28 Days Later delivered back in 2003. That is to say, the low-budget charm of the original film was one of factors that made it so impactful.
There was just something about watching the story unfold through the lens of a Canon XL1 digital video camera that made the premise seem so much more realistic than what a big-budget production would have captured.
Cillian Murphy Returning?
As for where 28 Years Later‘s storytelling will take us, your guess is as good as ours. Whether we’ll be following an entirely new set of characters, or revisiting those that were established in the past remains to be seen.
It is worth noting, however, that Cillian Murphy has gone on record in the past stating that he’s talked with Boyle and Garland in the past about working on a follow-up film. Though it would be interesting to see how Jim’s life turned after the initial outbreak, Murphy is not currently attached to the project.
Until more details about 28 Years Later surface, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
