Кадр з трейлеру «28 років потому» / Sony
Producer Andrew McDonald confirmed that actor Cillian Murphy will not appear in the film “28 Years Later,” but may reprise his role “closer to the end of the trilogy.”
Murphy, who played courier Jim in Danny Boyle’s original work “28 Days Later,” serves as the executive producer of the sequel, while the main roles are taken by Ralph Fiennes, Jodie Comer, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson.
The first trailer for “28 Years Later,” which was released last month, garnered 60 million views in a day — a record for 2024 and the second best result for horror films overall. Meanwhile, the video only intensified speculation about Murphy’s appearance, especially thanks to a zombie that closely resembled his character and who turned out to be played by British art dealer and model Angus Neill.
Boyle himself in an interview with Empire noted that the decision to involve Neill was not a marketing move and he did not think that the actor’s appearance would confuse viewers so much:
“I showed the trailer to my girlfriend, and she said: ‘People will think it’s Cillian,’ ” the director recounts. “I replied: ‘Don’t talk nonsense.'”
The budget for “28 Years Later” is $60 million. It is planned that the film will kick off a trilogy — all scripted by Alex Garland, who worked with Boyle on “28 Days Later.”
It was previously reported that the film was “mostly” shot on iPhone 15 Pro Max cameras, and Anthony Dod Mantle, the original’s cinematographer, who won an “Oscar” with Boyle in 2009 for the hit “Slumdog Millionaire,” returned to work, similarly employing innovative and affordable digital Canon XL-1 cameras at the time.
Details about the plot of “28 Years Later” have been scant until today (it is known that it takes place two decades after a zombie invasion of Great Britain). However, Boyle revealed several details in an interview: the main characters are a family of three hiding from the infected on an island connected to the mainland of Great Britain by a causeway.
“It’s a closed and inevitably very tight-knit community,” Boyle says. “Obviously, there are very strict rules that allow survival for so long in what is essentially a hostile environment.”
Soon, Spike (Alfie Williams) — the 12-year-old son of Jamie (Aaron-Taylor Johnson) and Ayla (Jodie Comer) — is set to journey beyond the island to see what’s really happening in the world and, of course, things will not go according to plan.
The survival story of the family and the rest of the country will span the entire trilogy, which will continue with Nia DaCosta’s film “28 Years Later: Temple of Bones” (already shot) and a third film from Boyle, which will start production after the first receives favorable reactions.