28 Years Later is likely to be the third entry within the horror collection, however the moody movie feels prefer it may very well be a standalone work – proper up till its closing moments.
The post-apocalyptic coming-of-age story from director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) and author Alex Garland (Civil Conflict) performs with time and perspective, solely revealing the significance of its first scene with a cliffhanger ending that units up the following movie in a brand new deliberate trilogy. If it’s not apparent: We’re getting 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple in January 2026. And the primary film tees all of it up.
[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for 28 Years Later.]
Whereas most of 28 Years Later follows Spike (Alfie Williams), a 12-year-old leaving a quarantined island for the primary time to hunt some contaminated, the movie opens within the quick aftermath of the Rage Virus outbreak with a bunch of terrified youngsters watching the Teletubbies. When the contaminated inevitably break in and begin biting everybody in the home, one child named Jimmy (Rocco Haynes) manages to flee into a close-by church the place his vicar father has determined to embrace the plague because the achievement of divine will. The vicar provides his son a golden crucifix and welcomes the bloodthirsty horde with manic glee whereas his youngster hides beneath a baptismal font grate.
We see Jimmy once more as an grownup (performed by Jack O’Connell of Sinners) when he rescues Spike from the hungry contaminated who’ve come to say his fish dinner. Nonetheless carrying the crucifix, which he wears the wrong way up, he’s additionally sporting a tiara, a tracksuit, and loads of glitzy rings. Apparently, within the intervening many years, he’s change into the chief of a cult that costume in matching attire and combat the contaminated with spectacular martial arts abilities slightly than the extra pragmatic bows utilized by Spike’s folks. Boyle says the look and character title have been impressed by BBC host Jimmy Saville, who was accused of being a serial intercourse offender.
Jimmy’s story can be fleshed out in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which was filmed back-to-back with 28 Years Later and can be launched on Jan. 16. 2026. Directed by Nia DaCosta (Candyman) with a script from Garland, the movie is called for the souvenir mori constructed by Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes). In an IndieWire interview, Boyle mentioned that each Kelson and Jimmy can be large characters in that movie alongside Spike, and that it’s going to discover “the character of evil.”
Anticipate Jimmy and his cult to be fairly twisted given they have been nearly assuredly liable for the tied up and branded man left for the contaminated who Spike and his dad Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) discover on their hunt. Jimmy can also be meant to be a manifestation of Garland’s views of the regressive methods folks view the previous, cherrypicking and misremembering components.
Garland plans to jot down the script for a 3rd movie within the trilogy, which can be directed by Boyle. It’s going to return to the place the franchise began by specializing in Jim, the bicycle messenger performed by Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later.
“You need to acknowledge the primary movie, however to a minimal diploma, however we tried to make a standalone movie in its personal proper,” Boyle advised Polygon. “However Cillian, as an illustration, who’d be the obvious technique to make the factor really feel steady with the primary movie, is a vital function of the trilogy — however not simply but.”
