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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Lifestyle
Elizabeth Gregory

28 Years Later: Jodie Comer and Edvin Ryding look exhausted and determined in new set images

New images have been released of Jodie Comer and Swedish actor Edvin Ryding on set filming 28 Years Later – the next chapter of Danny Boyle’s mega-hit zombie apocalypse series.

In the images, Killing Eve actor Comer is dirty and shabby as if her character has been trying to survive in the wild for some time. Meanwhile, Ryding’s character also looks a bit rough, dressed in combat garb, speaking to a fellow soldier.

The new film, which will also star Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jack O'Connell, Cillian Murphy, Ralph Fiennes and Willow star Erin Kellyman, is scheduled to be released in June next year. Its plot is still under wraps, but it’s being billed as a kind of sequel to both 28 Days Later (2002) and 28 Weeks Later (2007) – so expect zombies and gore galore.

Boyle had teased the possibility of a third film back in 2022, speaking to NME: “It might come back into focus,” he said. “It’s hard for companies distributing films and for cinema chains to show films, they’re struggling to get people into the cinema... But a third part would get people in, if it was half-decent.”

In the same interview, Boyle teased that a sequel script had been completed by writer Alex Garland several years ago, but never acted on. “I’d be very tempted [to direct it],” he said. “It feels like a very good time actually.” Then fans’ prayers were finally answered in February this year with the announcement that a third film had been officially confirmed.

Garland, who wrote the screenplay of 28 Days Later, Never Let Me Go (2010), and directed and wrote Ex Machina (2014) and Civil War (2024) is returning to the franchise, writing the new script. Speaking to the Big Issue in April, Garland said: “Danny really wanted to do it, and I think Danny’s really interesting and I was really happy to join in.”

28 Days Later cemented Boyle’s status as one of the UK’s truly great directors: the terrifying 2002 post-apocalyptic horror film starred Cillian Murphy as a man who woke up to a world where humanity had been all but wiped out by a zombie virus.

A wild success, described by one critic as “a muscular, virile piece of film-making”, it made its budget ten times over, terrifying viewers as well as working as a meditation on the fragility of society.

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