The upcoming sequel to the zombie horror franchise "28 Days Later" won't feature Cillian Murphy, but director Danny Boyle has promised there's more Cillian to come as part of his new trilogy.
After "28 Years Later" opens in theaters on June 20, Boyle will step aside for the next installment, "28 Years Later: The Bone Temple," which will be directed by Nia DaCosta (2021's "Candyman") and premiere on January 16, 2026. The film will mark the first appearance of Murphy's character Jim since the original 2002 movie, which is set in a dystopian United Kingdom in amid a zombie apocalypse caused by a virus.
"She gets a bit of Cillian at the end," Boyle told BI of DaCosta while speaking about her helming "The Bone Temple." "All I can say is you have to wait for Cillian, but hopefully he will help us get the third film financed."
That's right, Boyle has plans for another "28" movie after "The Bone Temple," and he's on board to direct it — though Sony, which is releasing "28 Years" and "The Bone Temple," hasn't committed yet.
Sony did not respond to a request for comment.
"28 Days Later" was a sensation upon its release in 2002, earning over $85 million worldwide on a budget of roughly $10 million. The film was lauded as groundbreaking, both as one of the first mainstream movies to be shot with digital cameras, and for how it redefined the zombie genre with fast-moving undead characters (as opposed to the quiet creep of zombies in "Night of the Living Dead").
But the journey to continue the franchise has been an arduous one for Boyle. When the "28 Days Later" sequel "28 Weeks Later" was released five years after, Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland were not involved.
Boyle and Garland (who, since writing "28 Days Later," has gone on to direct "Ex Machina," "Civil War," and "Warfare") spent years working on a third movie. At the same time, producers of the original were fighting over the franchise rights. By 2022, around the time of the original movie's 20th anniversary, the rights reverted back to the producers, and after a bidding war, Sony came out on top, agreeing to release "28 Years Later," a sequel, and possibly a third movie, making a new trilogy.
"28 Years Later" focuses on an island community in the UK that has survived the virus for decades. It stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, and Ralph Fiennes.
Speaking with BI, Boyle was transparent that he's using Oscar-winner Murphy's celebrity as a bargaining chip to get the third movie made.
But Murphy has already helped Boyle get "28 Years Later" without even showing up on screen.
The Oscar-winning director said that when he had to sell Sony on his idea of shooting some of the movie's footage with iPhones, it was a promise that Murphy would be involved that got his idea to use camera phones approved.
"You promise them Cillian Murphy, that's quite a deflection of any technical concerns, they soon forget," Boyle said with a laugh. "Yeah, we nakedly used that to get our own way. What better promise could you make?"
