In late 2002, director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland gave the zombie movie the sort of resurrection it needed. As featured in our list of 100 Best 2000s Movies, 28 Days Later is one of the films to come from the early '00s that revitalized the horror subgenre George A. Romero kickstarted with Night of the Living Dead, and it’s not hard to see why. But even after all these years of hardcore fandom, I’m still in awe of the alternate endings that were considered for this modern and frightful classic.
Naturally I’m going to have to dig into what happened at the end of 28 Days Later. While the movie’s a couple decades old, it's still worth providing a warning for those who want to enjoy it freshly. Though good luck on that front, Cillian Murphy fans, as the film’s out of print/unavailable for digital purchase.
That doesn’t mean we can’t take this taxi ride into the dark, as the options for this movie’s differing finales range from bleak to downright chilling. With that having been said, let’s go over how 28 Days Later ends in its current form, and why it matters to the endings that could have been.
How 28 Days Later Ends
The third act of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s take on the zombie movie revisits some familiar ground. While we’ve seen Jim (Cililan Murphy), Selena (Naomie Harris), and their band of survivors travel to an army base to find “the answer to Infection,” the truth reveals the uninfected to be the real monsters.
Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston) promises he and his men had that answer, and in a way he was right: Infection is permanent. There’s no cure, and the only hope for survival in the 28 Days Later universe is moving forward. In the Major’s eyes, that’s through wiping out the Infected and repopulating through the conscription of Selena and Megan (Hannah Burns).
Our heroes reject that hypothesis, which leads to Jim being sentenced to death. Escaping his captors, and raising all sorts of hell in the process, Jim is ready to escape with Selena and Hannah. That is, until Major Henry West shoots Jim in the stomach. His reason: “You killed my men.”
For a moment, it looks like Jim is going to die. As Selena puts pressure on the wound, he talks of a scenario where he sees a jet plane in the blue sky and a potential rescue. In the final version of 28 Days Later, Jim survives, thanks to Selena reviving him through her nursing skills. After another 28 days, the group lays out a message for any passing planes to pick up.
With the final shot being a smiling Cililan Murphy, our heroes are presumed to be rescued, with nothing bad ever happening to them again. Of course, that’s if you haven’t read the Boom! Comics continuation series for 28 Days Later; but that’s another story for another time. For now, let’s start descending into the varying fates of Cillian Murphy’s Jim, and why they weren’t used.
Alternate Ending #1: The Freeze Frame Ending
The first option that 28 Days Later almost ran with for its ending didn’t come from the creative process; it actually came from running out of money. Keep in mind, this was the movie that actually used Danny Boyle’s daughter and some of her friends to politely hold pedestrians back while filming Cililan Murphy’s big scenes walking through desolation.
By the time the budget for one of the best horror movies ran out, the last scene that was completed was Jim and Selena, caught in a freeze frame as Hannah rams the estate’s gates with the taxi. That was it: no chickens and no messages for passing jets, just a frozen shot of Murphy and Naomie Harris lurched forward. It's not much of an ending, even if it wasn’t on purpose.
Why The Freeze Frame Ending Didn’t Work
In the 28 Days Later oral history for Inverse, producer Andrew Macdonald admitted to being downhearted that this was almost the finalized ending. There was literally no ending to the picture because they’d simply reached the end of the road. Which was when, according to Macdonald’s recollections, the following events took place:
Once we showed [the studio] that ending, they then gave us a lot more money to shoot the alternative ending in the Lake District. In America, where it did a huge business and was very successful, they used the original ending — which was the Lake District, the happy ending. And then, when the film was doing well, to present more publicity, they offered both endings.
In order to solve 28 Days Later’s ending problem, three more options were crafted. One was the actual ending you read above, which saw the group surviving rather hopefully, and the other... not so much. Plus, there's one final option that never even made it past the storyboarding phase. Prepare for the really grim stuff, starting with the dour ending that was filmed.
Alternate Ending #2: “...what if”/Rescue Coda
Our next alternate ending for 28 Days Later is the more widely experienced variant of Jim’s potentially worse fate. In the “...what if” ending, Jim dies from his gunshot wounds. Rather than a quick cut montage of Selena fighting to save his life, we’re shown the entire process in full detail.
Ending with Cililan Murphy dying on the table, Hannah asks Selena what they’re going to do. Ever the determined survivor, Selena readies herself to leave with Hannah and responds, quite simply, “We move.”
Cue the “Rescue Coda,” available on the home video release, which extends this tale into the theatrical ending’s upbeat finale. The big difference is that Hannah, Selena and a chicken are camping out while waiting for help to arrive.
Why 28 Days Later’s “...what if”/Rescue Coda Ending Wasn’t Used
For once, I have to say I agree with the results of a test screening altering an ending. As screenwriter Alex Garland revealed in that same oral history Andrew Macdonald took part in with Inverse, he was the architect behind this concept. In his part of the tale, it absolutely cratered:
The hospital ending was the ending I’d written. Jim dies and the two girls set off into the world — who knows what happens to them? It tested really badly. Not just badly but really badly.
When someone makes that sort of distinction between results, you know it’s bad. And one can totally see why that ending may have rubbed audiences the wrong way. Inadvertently tapping into the sort of vibe we’d be seeing in post-9/11 New York, 28 Days Later’s horror in devastation may have weighed more heavily on audiences within the year that followed that tragic event. So maybe it’s good that the final option we’re about to discuss was never filmed, as it’s the bleakest of the bunch.
Alternate Ending #3: The “Radical Alternative Ending”
Buckle up, dear readers; because it’s time to get into the wildly different third act that 28 Days Later almost dove into. The “Radical Alternative Ending” rewrote everything that happened from when Jim, Selena, Hannah and Hannah's father Frank (Brendan Gleeson) reached the army blockade. Here, the pivot point was Frank’s death, which happens in the finished film after he’s infected by a drop of blood.
Instead of the army shooting Frank dead once he’s infected, a reluctant Jim merely knocks him out, despite Selena begging him to kill Frank. Apparently, in the "Radical Alternative Ending" to 28 Days Later, the Rage Virus does have a cure. It’s an extreme one, and it’s only revealed by a lone researcher locked up in the animal testing lab that started this whole mess: a full blood transfusion.
There’s a lot that goes into this ending, so if you want to get the full picture, you should watch the video below. Also included on the 28 Days Later home entertainment release, and with commentary from Danny Boyle and Alex Garland, here’s the darkest ending theorized for Jim’s journey:
For those of you who are saving the video for later, here’s how this option pans out. After hiding out in this lab, and running some blood tests, Jim is revealed to be a match. Sacrificing himself to give Hannah her father back, the transfusion is completed, and Cillian Murphy is left for dead yet again in a medical facility. Only this time, it’s strapped to a table, turning into an Infected, as news footage of violence plays all around him.
Why 28 Days Later’s “Radical Alternative Ending” Wasn’t Used
My friends, there’s suspension of disbelief, and then there’s jumping the shark. Danny Boyle and Alex Garland even realized just how weird 28 Days Later’s "Radical Alternative Ending" seemed, and they admitted as much on the commentary accompanying the storyboards. Boyle explained as much thusly:
That was the problem right there, with this ending. We’d established that one drop in the eye will infect someone. Then how the flying fuck are we gonna sell the idea that this blood transfusion idea is gonna work. What do you do, clean our every capillary and vein with bleach, before making the transfusion?
Audiences are still hoping the long discussed second sequel to 28 Days Later, and that’s not by accident. With 2007’s 28 Weeks Later going harder in the very same world created by Alex Garland and Danny Boyle, people still very much want to see what happens next. Cillian Murphy’s Jim could very possibly return to the picture, with the Oppenheimer actor and his collaborators being excited about that very possibility.
None of this would have been possible if it wasn't for a creative change-up that landed a proper ending, while also delivering a happy one. Should the hypothetically named 28 Months Later ever land on the schedule of upcoming horror movies, maybe Jim might not be so lucky.
For now, it’s enough of a hassle to try and find a copy of 28 Days Later to enjoy, so maybe solving one of these problems can somehow lead to the other easily being addressed as well. If there's one reason this film should be resurrected through home entertainment, it's to keep these stories alive, and in frightening detail.
