The 2002 horror movie 28 Days Later received its first follow-up, 28 Weeks Later, in 2007. Now, all these years later, it looks like another sequel titled 28 Years Later is finally in development.
Writer Alex Garland opened up about the film while speaking with Inverse. He noted that they would drop the opportunity to name it “28 Months Later” so that they could set it in the distant future.
Here’s what Garland shared:
“A few years ago an idea materialized in my head for what would be really 28 Years Later,” he began. “Danny always liked the idea.”
Garland means Danny Boyle, who directed the original film. Though Boyle himself notes that Garland, who has also become a director in recent years, could handle the responsibility for the new film. Otherwise, Boyle wouldn’t mind returning to direct it either.
“So we’re talking about it quite seriously, quite diligently,” Boyle adds. “If he doesn’t want to direct it himself I’ll be well up for it if we can execute a similarly good idea.”
Of course, the franchise has always had difficulties with getting sequels off the ground. In fact, the first attempt, 28 Weeks Later, just about killed any desire Garland had to make sequels.
“I resisted [making a sequel] for a long time because there were things about 28 Weeks that bugged me,” Garland says. “I just thought, ‘F*ck that. I’d rather try to write a different story in a different world.’”
Many fans no doubt agree with Garland. The original film became an instant classic. As for the sequel, however, it was less than successful with fans and actually became something of a flop. But Garland seems positive enough about revisiting the franchise all these years later. Hopefully fans will be too.
Stay tuned to ScreenGeek for any additional updates regarding 28 Years Later or any other potential 28 Days Later continuations as we have them. It’s unknown if the third film really will get off the ground – but it’s nice to know that the original writer and director are both actively developing the project. As such, we’ll have to see what happens in the coming years.