Danny Boyle and Alex Garland's Zombie Franchise Is Back in the Stunning First Trailer for '28 Years Later'
More than two decades ago, '28 Days Later' helped bring Cillian Murphy to fame — and now its second sequel stars Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes.
The zombie apocalypse has evolved. When just 28 days had passed, survivors faced a nightmare. Little had improved when 28 weeks had gone by. Now, following 28 years of chaos, Jodie Comer (The Bikeriders), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (The Fall Guy), Ralph Fiennes (The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar), Jack O'Connell (Back to Black) and Alfie Williams (His Dark Materials) are dealing with the aftermath of a society ravaged by a horrific infection for decades. Yes, the trailer for the aptly named 28 Years Later is here.
Although 2030 will mark 28 years since viewers were treated to one of the best zombie movies ever, aka 28 Days Later from filmmaker Danny Boyle (Yesterday), you'll be watching a new flick from Boyle in the same franchise in 2025. First confirmed at the beginning of 2024, the movie has dropped its first full sneak peek to help close out the year — complete with Teletubbies, towers of skulls and bones, a possibly familiar-looking zombie, and the grim reality after days became weeks and then years of coping with the new status quo.
28 Days Later has already spawned one follow-up thanks to 2007's 28 Weeks Later, but Boyle didn't direct it. Screenwriter Alex Garland, who also penned Sunshine for Boyle, then hopped behind the camera himself with Ex Machina, Annihilation, Men, Civil War and TV series Devs, wasn't involved with 28 Weeks Later, either. But they're both onboard for the third film in the series, which is the start of a new trilogy. The saga's fourth feature 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple has already been shot, in fact, with Candyman and The Marvels' Nia DaCosta directing.
The setup this time around: almost three decades after the rage virus initially seeped through humanity after escaping from a biological weapons laboratory, some survivors have etched out a life on a small island. Elsewhere, quarantine remains a key way of tackling the infection. With that starting point — and with unease dripping through the first trailer, complete with stunning imagery — expect Boyle and Garland to dig into the terrors that linger when two of the island's residents venture over to the mainland.
With 28 Days Later among the movies that helped bring Oppenheimer Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy to fame, the actor is an executive producer on 28 Years Later. That mightn't be all that's in store for him, though, if you pay close attention to the trailer. In the original film, he played Jim, a bicycle courier who wakes up from a coma in a deserted hospital 28 days after an outbreak changed the world forever.
Marking Boyle and Garland's first proper collaboration after Boyle adapted Garland's best-selling novel The Beach for the big screen two years prior, 28 Days Later still ranks among the best work on either's resume — and on Murphy's as well, even if it didn't win him any of Hollywood's top shiny trophies. Set in the aftermath of the accidental release of a highly contagious virus, the film's images of a desolated London instantly became iconic, but this is a top-notch movie on every level.
That includes its performances, with then-unknowns Murphy and Naomie Harris (the Bond franchise's current Moneypenny) finding the balance between demonstrating their characters' fierce survival instincts and their inherent vulnerability.
If you wondering why 28 Months Later wasn't made, it was talked about for years, but the time has now passed unless the new trilogy includes a flick set between 28 Weeks Later and 28 Years Later.
Check out the first trailer for 28 Years Later below:
28 Years Later releases in cinemas Down Under on Thursday, June 19, 2025.
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