Nearly 22 years after Danny Boyle shook up the zombie genre with 28 Days Later, the director makes a return to the saga of the infested with this week’s 28 Years Later. As the title implies, it’s been a long time coming.
After making future Oscar-winner Cillian Murphy a breakout star and earning over $70 million worldwide on a paltry $8 million budget, 28 Days Later earned a sequel, 28 Weeks Later. But by the time 20th Century Fox wanted to produce it, Boyle was off making his cult sci-fi film Sunshine. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (Damsel) was recruited by Boyle to write and direct the film, which expanded the scope and polished the filmmaking with a studio sheen. But 28 Weeks Later didn’t go over well with audiences, and between negative reviews and meager box office, momentum for the would-be franchise was all but gone. Though over the years, Boyle was always quick to mention interest in coming back for a second sequel.
So why didn’t we get 28 Months Later?
When I ask Danny Boyle and 28 Years Later writer Alex Garland — who penned the original script as well — they can only laugh.
“Once we finish this trilogy,” Boyle jokes, nodding to current plans for not one but three 28 Years Later films, “[28 Months Later] will be the prequel.”
“It’s a trick George Lucas taught us,” Garland snarks. But there was a time when Months was absolutely on the table.
was eventually sold to Sony Pictures), the process of bringing a 28 [TBD] to screen was slow and arduous.
Neither Boyle nor Garland were willing to share what, if anything, made it from drafts of the scrapped 28 Months Later into 28 Years Later, but the completed film seems to share a perspective with the original idea: Boyle wanted to make another movie set completely in Britain, that centered on a British family of survivors. 28 Years Later is exactly that, sidestepping the ending of 28 Weeks Later with expositional opening text.
Garland tells Polygon it was a relief to pivot to 28 Years Later: A large passage of time opened up all kinds of world-building possibilities and what-if questions to explore. And Boyle says it gave him the chance to do a movie that still felt like a totally original project versus “the rehash” he feared he would make coming off of 28 Days Later. But the director isn’t completely done with the past either: He confirms Cillian Murphy — as his 28 Days Later character Jim (or something else entirely?) — is a “very important feature of the trilogy.”
So maybe they did learn a few lessons from George Lucas after all. But don’t hold your breath for 28 Months Later.
The post Why 28 Months Later didn’t happen appeared first on Polygon.
