Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes will star in 28 Years Later, Danny Boyle’s upcoming sequel to the classic zombie horror 28 Days Later.
The new film will mark the reunion of Boyle and writer Alex Garland, who directed and wrote the 2002 original and served as executive producers on the 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later.
28 Years Later is the first in a planned trilogy of sequels. Earlier this month, Deadline reported that Candyman director Nia DiCosta was in talks to helm the second instalment, which is planned to shoot back-to-back with the first film.
Plot details for the sequels remain vague, though they boast a $75m budget for each film and now hefty star power – a far cry from 28 Days Later, which was shot on $8m and featured a relatively unknown Cillian Murphy in a breakout role.
Murphy played a bicycle courier who wakes up from a coma to a post-apocalyptic UK, which has been ravaged by a virus that turns victims into bloodthirsty aggressors. The Oscar-winning Oppenheimer star will return as an executive producer on 28 Years Later.
28 Days Later – which the Guardian called a “muscular, virile piece of film-making” back in 2002 – became a critical hit and a surprise box office success soon after its release. It is largely credited for re-animating the zombie horror genre and popularising the depiction of zombies as fast-moving, terrifying attackers rather than lumbering cadavers.
