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From 28 weeks later debuted in 2007, horror fans wondered if we’ll ever get a third movie in the 28 days later franchise. For years, the rights to the sequel have seemingly been tied down in red tape, but more recently, the original creators and cast have hinted that a sequel is finally in the works. And in a new interview with Reverse, 28 days later director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland provide extremely exciting updates.
“A few years ago an idea materialized in my head for what would really be 28 years later“, says Garland, suggesting that the next film will ignore the obvious “28 months later” naming convention and jump into the future. “Danny always liked the idea.”
In the two decades since 28 days laterGarland also became a fully respected director. So who will direct this sequel? Danny Boyle has some ideas.
“So we’re talking about it very seriously, diligently,” Boyle says. “If he doesn’t want to do it himself, I’ll be fine if we can execute a similar good idea.”
But why did it take so long to make this sequel? To answer this question, we have to go back to the original sequel, 28 weeks later.
The problem with 28 weeks later
Danny Boyle helped direct the opening scene of 28 weeks laterwhich looks noticeably different from the rest of the film.
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Fans only had to wait four years after seeing 28 days later to get a sequel to the instantly iconic horror movie. 28 weeks later arrived in 2007, continuing the story some six months later as the US military invades a zombie-virus-ravaged England and attempts to restore civilization to London – spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well.
As one might expect, 28 weeks later features a full zombie outbreak, as well as the final reveal that some of the “infected” made their way to mainland Europe through the tunnel between London and Paris. A little less predictable 28 weeks later was kind of a flop.
At the time it was made, Boyle and Garland were busy working on their psychological space thriller, Sun. So they entrusted the film to a new team. Boyle would return to help direct the sequel’s thrilling opening scene, while Garland would have participated in numerous script rewrites. Sadly, that wasn’t enough to save a film that seemingly missed the original’s mark.
28 weeks later feels more like a standard Hollywood action movie than the low-budget experience that preceded it. (It’s a movie where the good guys use a helicopter to chop off zombie heads.) And while there are some interesting parallels between this fictional occupation of London and the real-life occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by the US in the mid-2000s isn’t enough to salvage what should be an awfully good time but feels more like a mid-level summer blockbuster.
Unsurprisingly, Alex Garland agrees and recounts Reverse This 28 weeks later almost ruined the whole franchise for him.
“I resisted [making a sequel] for a long time because there were things about 28 weeks it bothered me,” Garland says. “I just thought, ‘F*ck that. I’d rather try to write a different story in a different world.
But clearly, something has changed. Maybe enough time has passed. Or maybe the decision to skip “28 months later” and go straight to “28 years” offers the chance to ignore the bad sides of 28 weeks. Either way, we’re certainly not complaining – assuming all this talk leads to something, of course.