28 Years Later Finds Home, Zombie Trilogy Finally Being Completed
The zombies are officially on the move. Sony has managed to wrangle the rights to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s hot commodity – 28 Years Later – which will round out the long-awaited two-film series first started by 2002’s 28 Days Later. It’s not often that you see both the original director and writer return for a sequel – let alone two full decades later, yet, here Boyle is to direct with Garland back behind his typewriter.
A Fourth Film?
What’s even better news than 28 Years Later finding a home with Sony is that this means that both this project and one more follow-up, now under the working title of Part 2, is also forthcoming. While Garland will also work on the third film in the series, Boyle says that he’ll tap out after the sequel, leaving the spot open for another eager director to pick up from there. The true cherry on top would be if Cillian Murphy returned to work on the sequel or threequel to the film that moved his career along its trajectory, which is completely in the realm of possibility. As of right now, however, Murphy is only attached in an executive producer capacity.
A Triumph For Sony
Securing the rights and calling the movie their own is a huge win for Sony. With a title as big as 28 Years Later, which has the potential to be a monumental earner at the global box office, the duo had their pick of the litter – so to speak – with other studios, including Warner Bros., presenting them with impressive propositions to sway them their way. In the end, Sony must’ve made the writer and director an offer they couldn’t refuse and the rest will now be history.
28 Days Later’s Impact
With 2024 well underway, it’s been more than 20 years since Boyle and Garland broke the mold on how the world viewed zombie-centered flicks. Heck, they even shaped how the tales of the undead would sprawl out into smaller stories, with shows like The Walking Dead and The Last of Us, trudging along in 28 Days Later’s footprints. While it was always the goal to have more movies come down the pike — after both the first movie and 2007’s 28 Weeks Later — the wheels of Hollywood turn slowly and now it seems that, rather than 28 Months Later, 28 Years Later is the more appropriate title for their third chapter
28 Days Later
In the movie that started it all, Cillian Murphy awakes from a coma to find that he’s seemingly the sole survivor of a zombie-like apocalypse – talk about a rude awakening! With the virus-afflicted hostiles walking around every corner, the film follows the Oppenheimer star on his quest for survival. As of right now, no plot details for 28 Years Later have been revealed but, from the name, we can expect that society has, at least in some ways, continued although it’s still likely a fight to stay alive day in and day out.
28 Weeks Later
Some may be a bit confused that 28 Years Later is being dubbed a sequel to 28 Days Later as 2007 brought the Jeremy Renner and Rose Byrne-led feature, 28 Weeks Later. What sets 28 Weeks Later apart is that it was a standalone – with Boyle and Garland not as directly involved and directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo who co-penned it with Enrique López Lavigne, Rowan Joffé, and Jesus Olmo.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
