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Clearly we all know how much time has passed between the worlds of 28 days later and 28 years later. And if you don’t know, we’ll give you a second to think. Yes. He is 28 years old. And while it’s relatively obvious, a new interview with the director and writer of the upcoming zombie movie talked about how the passage of time is crucial to set everything to come.
28 years later opens June 20 and is the third film in a series originally created by writer Alex Garland (who went on to do Civil War, Ex Machina, and more) and director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire). After going aside for 28 weeks later, the pair reunited for the first film in a proposed trilogy that picks up with the zombie outbreak three decades after it began. “It was a completely different approach,” Boyle said in a new interview with Empire. “That was about what 28 years gives you.”
What 28 years gives you is stability. In 28 years laterthe world has come to terms with zombies. They learned to live with them and made them part of their lives. The film shows that through the eyes of a small island that has isolated itself from the rest of the country. “It’s a closed community and necessarily very tight,” Boyle said. “There are very strict defense laws, obviously, to survive that long in what is effectively a continuous hostile environment. They have created a successful community, as they see it.”
The community, called Holy Island, is only accessible from the mainland via a small causeway that only appears a few hours a day when the tide goes out. Therefore, they are relatively safe. But the film goes further, following a father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his wife (Jodie Comer) who take their 12-year-old son (Alfie Williams) on a journey to show the truth of the world. Things don’t go according to plan.
This story will later continue in a second film, 28 years later: the Bone Templedirected by Nia DaCosta. It has already been shot and the release date is set for January 16, 2026, which means that the audience just wait about 28 weeks to see what happens next after that 28 years later. As for the third film, however, Boyle will direct but only if audiences respond to the first. “This is very narratively ambitious,” Garland told Empire. “Danny and I understood this. We tried to condense it, but its natural form seemed like a trilogy.”
As for the star of the original film, and the executive producer of this trilogy, Cillian Murphy, will not appear in the first film. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t appear at all. “He’s not in the first movie, but hopefully there will be some Jim somewhere down the line,” producer Andrew Macdonald. said to the Empire. The answer points to long-standing rumors that will be shown in DaCosta’s film.
Together, Boyle and Garland make a formidable team. Neither had to return to the franchise they helped create. That they wanted, and want to make it so big, gives us a lot of confidence that we will see something special in a few months. It all starts on June 20th.
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