What we know about 28 Years Later as Ralph Fiennes shares plot details

Director Danny Boyle has reunited with screenwriter Alex Garland and actor Cillian Murphy for zombie threequel 28 Years Later, a film that is set to kick start a whole new trilogy.

Set 28 years after the original zombie outbreak, the film will explore life in Britain amid a "terrible plague of infected people", and see a young boy setting out to find a doctor to help his "dying mother" according to star Ralph Fiennes.

Written by Garland and directed by Boyle, the original movie, 28 Days Later, was released back in 2002 and helped shoot its star Murphy into the big leagues, and popularised the trope of the 'fast zombie' after years of shuffling, slow-moving undead.

A surprisingly stellar sequel titled 28 Weeks Later was released five years afterwards in 2007 but Murphy didn’t return and Boyle was only present as a producer. Instead, Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo took the helm with Boyle’s Trainspotting star Robert Carlyle in the leading role. All things considered, it was a decent horror sequel but ever since its release, fans have been clamouring for a direct follow-up from the original creatives behind 28 Days Later.

Cut to 2024 and their patience seems to have finally paid off, with a fresh-from-Oppenheimer Murphy once again ready to revisit a zombie-ravaged Britain for another rage-fuelled outing. With that in mind, here’s everything we know about 28 Years Later.

When will 28 Years Later be released?

28 Years Later will be released in UK cinemas on 20 June, 2025.

Originally, the follow-up was set to be titled 28 Months Later, continuing with the movie’s timeline-set title motif. However, after so much time had passed since we last returned to this world in 2007, Boyle, Garland and Murphy thought that the title 28 Years Later would be more appropriate.

The first of two planned sequels will follow after that, but its release date is TBC.

Is there a trailer for 28 Years Later?

There’s no trailer for 28 Years Later. That said, when we do get our first look at the sequel, it’ll be interesting to see how the creative brains behind this troubling story have upped the ante on their flesh-eating world.

The sequel wrapped filming in August 2024 but in September reports arrived that additional photography was taking place in Bradford. According to reports, Boyle’s latest was shot on iPhones, using Apple’s smartphones connected to high-end camera lenses.

The success of Boyle’s original film — complete with its stark and down-to-earth dystopian tone — proved so successful that it gave the whole zombie genre a new lease of life, bringing it back from the dead once more. This resulted in more undead adventures on both the big and small screen, perhaps most notably with AMC bringing us their never-ending mega-hit The Walking Dead.

Who is in the cast of 28 Years Later?

Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes are all set to star in Boyle’s 28 Years Later. The cast will also include Skins actor Jack O’Connell and Solo: A Star Wars Story’s Erin Kellyman.

While little is known about who they’ll be playing, sources suggest that O’Connell will have more of a supporting role in the first film and become a lead in the film's sequel. Comer also revealed that some of the film will take place in Newcastle, with the star reportedly watching video clips of singer Cheryl to perfect her Geordie accent.

Oppenheimer star Murphy will return as Jim, the bike courier-turned-zombie-survivor that he played in Boyle’s first film — but “in a surprising way”, according to Sony Motion Pictures chairman Tim Rothman.

Murphy will also serve as executive producer on the new film. Speaking to Variety in February 2024, he admitted that the original 28 Days Later was a personal favourite.

He said: "I never watch my own films, except that one. It’s always on around Halloween and during the pandemic people were constantly sending me clips. And I’ve shown it to my kids. And it’s really stood up, even though it’s something like 23 years old now. So I’m really thrilled that we’ll get the band back together to makes this one."

What is the plot of 28 Years Later?

Talking about the plot of 28 Years Later, Ralph Fiennes told IndieWire; "Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities. And it centres on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother.

"He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.”

Boyle’s original film brought us to a world where anti-animal abuse protestors accidentally release a new virus onto the world whilst trying to liberate some lab animals. This highly contagious and fast-spreading virus sends anyone it infects into a blind, murderous rage and it doesn’t take long for it to spread across the UK, destroying everything and everyone in its path.

One of the few people oblivious to this destruction is Murphy’s character Jim, who awakes from months spent in a coma to discover a very different world, one divided into two factions — survivors and the infected.

28 Weeks Later caught up with society when it had finally got a hold of the situation and managed to enforce some sort of return to normality. However, soon enough, rabid hoards of the undead were in control once more.

Will there a sequel to 28 Years Later?

Yes. Ralph Fiennes told IndieWire that the first two films have already completed filming.

In April 2024, Candyman and The Marvels filmmaker Nia DaCosta was rumoured to be circling the job of directing the second instalment of Boyle’s new trilogy.

Speaking during the 2024 Edinburgh International Film Festival in August 2024, producer Andrew MacDonald confirmed that filming on 28 Years Later had wrapped and work had already begun on its follow-up.

"We’re making, hopefully, three more 28 films with the first one called 28 Years Later that Alex has written, and Danny has directed, and has finished shooting,” he said. “Then we’re just about to start, tomorrow morning, actually, part two. And then we hope there’s going to be a third part and it’s a trilogy."

28 Years Later will be released in UK cinemas on 20 June, 2025