- The first trailer for 28 Years Later has dropped
- Fans are convinced they’ve spotted a Cillian Murphy’s Jim
- 28 Years Later to kick-start a new horror trilogy
28 Years Later is gearing up for its 2025 release date, with a creepy first trailer making its way online.
Director Danny Boyle’s first film in the series, 28 Days Later, was released in 2002. It introduced us to a bike courier named Jim (Cillian Murphy). He awakens from a coma to find England overrun by zombies. This undead horde is the result of a deadly virus that transforms the infected into people stuck in a state of mindless rage. Blood, terror and chaos ensue.
28 Years Later picks up the story alongside a new group of survivors as they continue to battle the same virus. However, according to its log-line, new mutations have made life more difficult.
Read more: Everything we know about 28 Years Later
“It’s been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory, and now, still in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amidst the infected,” explains the movie’s official synopsis.
“One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.”
When is 28 Years Later released?
28 Years Later will be released theatrically on 20 June 2025.
It brings Boyle back to the franchise alongside Murphy and original movie scribe Alex Garland. With Sony Pictures Group Chairman telling Deadline that Murphy is set to return in a “surprising way,” fans are already convinced they’ve spotted him in the movie’s recent trailer.
The sequel will set up a new trilogy. The director behind the recent Candyman remake, Nia DaCosta will helm its second instalment, 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple.
With so much flesh-eating action in the pipeline, perhaps it’s time we all had a bit of a refresher on everything that’s happened in the 28 Years Later franchise so far?
What happened in 28 Days Later?
Boyle’s 2002 film 28 Days Later kick-started the franchise. It begins with a group of animal rights activists breaking into an animal research laboratory to liberate a chimpanzee. Little do they know that it is infected with a new virus that scientists have called Rage.
The virus is incredibly contagious and transforms anyone it comes into contact with into a state of blood-thirsty, mindless rage. Once the chimp escapes, it starts infecting people and the scene is set for 28 Days Later’s post-apocalyptic storyline.
28 Days after this incident, we meet bike courier Jim (Murphy). An accident has sent him into a coma and he awakens to find England abandoned. After wandering around a vacant world, he is soon chased by groups of infected. Luckily, he’s rescued by fellow survivors Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley).
After taking refuge in a church, Jim convinces his new friends to visit his parents’ house to see if they’re still alive. However, he quickly discovers that they have died. When a candle attracts more infected, Mark gets a wound on his arm prompting Selena to kill him.
The trio soon meet cab driver Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his daughter Hannah (Megan Burns). They show Jim, Selena and Mark a radio frequency that claims to be from a group of survivors. The group decide to travel to Manchester to try and track it down. On the way, Frank becomes infected when a drop of blood accidentally lands in his eye. Before he can infect anyone else, soldiers arrive and kill him.
Jim, Selena and Hannah follow the soldiers back to a heavily guarded mansion. However, what they thought was safety quickly becomes a new threat. They discover that the leader of the soldiers, Major Henry West (Christopher Eccleston), plans to attract females to his all-male survivors. Dismayed, Jim tries to fight back. During the chaos, he witnesses a plane flying overhead, suggesting the virus hasn’t infected the entire world, just England.
After releasing an infected soldier, chaos spreads across the mansion, allowing Jim, Selena and Hannah to escape. After another 28 days, we find the trio living in a cottage in Cumbria, with nearby infected succumbing to starvation. As the movie ends, we see the group trying to flag down support from the military flying overhead in fighter jets.
What happened in 28 Weeks Later?
28 Weeks Later was released in 2007 but Boyle, Garland and Murphy didn’t return. Instead, it was directed by Spanish filmmaker Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. In the years since its release, it’s developed a cult status.
The film begins by introducing us to a husband and wife during the height of the virus outbreak. When Don (Robert Carlyle) decides to let a young boy into the house, he soon discovers he is being followed by infected. Together, they’re chased to a nearby boat where Don’s wife Alice (Catherine McCormack) refuses to leave the boy and Don leaves her for dead.
The film then shoots forward to 28 weeks later during a time when the infected have begun to die from starvation. We find Don living in a US-run army compound where he is met by his children Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton) who were living out of the country during the outbreak.
Despite being warned otherwise, Tammy and Andy sneak out of the compound to visit their family home and retrieve photographs of their missing mother. Whilst here, they discover their mother is actually alive before American soldiers take them back to the base. It is discovered that Alice is an asymptomatic carrier of the Rage virus which is why she shows no symptoms. When Don defies orders and goes to meet his wife, he is infected after they kiss and embarks on a rampage throughout the base.
Medical officer Scarlet (Rose Byrne) saves Tammy and Andy and becomes convinced that their DNA could be the route to a cure. Meanwhile, chaos quickly spreads across the base, forcing Scarlet, Tammy and Andy to team up with sniper Sergeant Doyle (Jeremy Renner) to try and survive. Together, Doyle gets them access to a helicopter and they fly to Wembley where they find an abandoned car. As American forces close in, Doyle dies.
As Scarlet, Andy and Tammy head for the London Underground, they’re chased by an infected Dom who bites Andy and kills Scarlet. After Tammy kills her father, she discovers that Andy is also asymptomatic of the Rage virus. They fly by helicopter to France where it is revealed that the virus has now spread to Europe.
