Last year, after a heated studio bidding war, Sony prevailed and acquired the rights to Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s “28 Years Later” trilogy. It was a hot package, and many studios were in the running for the rights, including Warner Bros. Sony will finally be producing and distributing all three films. Or so we thought.
The first two films have already been shot, but Boyle told a CinemaCon crowd yesterday that the third film wasn’t a done deal. Sony Pictures CEO Tom Rothman is being cautious in giving the green light on the trilogy capper, and for good reason.
We've finished the first film, we've shot the second, however, we don't have financing for the third film. [Sony Pictures Chairman/CEO Tom Rothman] seems like a nice guy, but he hasn't given us the finance for the third, and that's where [exhibition] comes in. So please, do us proud in your cinemas on June 20 and support the continuing apocalypse.
So, it’ll all depend on how well the films do at the box-office. I’m not worried about the first one, “28 Years Later,” which stars Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. It’s set for June 20 release, has a mid-range budget of $75M, and the trailer was met with strong notices.
What I’m more worried about is the Nia DaCosta-directed follow-up, “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” which wrapped production last fall, and has a middling January 2026 release date. DaCosta is coming off “The Marvels.” I’m not entirely sure why Boyle and Garland decided to grant her the responsibility of moving the ship forward on their trilogy.
It also turns out that the first instalment was shot on an iPhone 15, which makes it the priciest film ever to be shot on a smartphone. Boyle was aided by his go-to cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “28 Days Later,” “Trainspotting,” “127 Hours”). No word yet on whether DaCosta’s film was also shot on smartphone.
Plot details have been kept under lock and key, but Fiennes, who plays a “good doctor” in ‘28 Years,’ recently told IndieWire that the film centers on a young boy:
Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities. And it centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them, hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but is a force for good.
Boyle hasn’t directed a film since his modest Beatles-themed comedy “Yesterday,” which was released in 2019; he’s banking on ‘28 Years’ to be a triumphant comeback. Meanwhile, Garland is coming off having directed “Civil War,” and the upcoming “Warfare.”