Danny Boyle seems really happy. Invigorated, even, as he profusely keeps apologizing to me about only getting to see 28 minutes of his new film, 28 Years Later, in a conference room at Sony’s New York City headquarters. It wasn’t his idea, but he says the film is filled with so many twists and turns that the studio is skittish about those details getting out. Though he still discusses plenty of those ahead, like our hero from 28 Days Later, played by Cillian Murphy, returning for the second and third films of this trilogy. Oh, that’s the other thing that I had to clarify. When the Academy Award-winning director says “trilogy,” he is not referring to 28 Days Later, 28 Weeks Later, and now 28 Years Later. No, 28 Years Later is the first movie of a brand-new trilogy that is still both related and inspired by the first film, 2002’s 28 Days Later. (Boyle confirms that 28 Weeks Later has almost nothing to do with these three new films.) In the 28 minutes (naturally) of footage of 28 Years Later we did see, most of the world is fine, and the infected all live on mainland Britain. There’s a secluded island where a small group of survivors live, but every so often, they need to travel to the mainland for supplies. Children need to be taught to defend themselves against the infected, so Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) takes his 12-year-old son, Spike (Alfie Williams), to the mainland for training. As you might imagine, there’s some pretty disturbing imagery, and Jamie and Spike find themselves in quite a pickle as our 28 minutes expired. Speaking of the now seemingly ignored 28 Weeks Later, I did ask if Boyle regretted not directing that film instead. He was too busy with his work on the excellent Sunshine at the time, which leads us to revealing that his 28 Years Later and Sunshine writer, Alex Garland, had planned Sunshine as a trilogy, too, had it performed better. An outline was even written for the two sequels. And, ahead, after a lot of prodding, Boyle reveals a few details of what that would have looked like. Speaking of Sunshine, Boyle also talks about what it was like to ride the infamous Vomit Comet that simulates weightlessness… in a story you will never guess in a million years where it’s going.
’28 Years Later’ Will Contain Some Intense and Disturbing Imagery

Danny Boyle: Did you see the footage? The 28 minutes? COLLIDER: Yes, I saw the footage. BOYLE: Sorry about that. It’s not your fault. BOYLE: It’s not. You should have put your foot down, “I’m an Oscar winner and I want the people to see this.” BOYLE: The real reason, I think, is there is a story element in it that is lovely. It’s a beautiful story. But they don’t want to give it away. They don’t want it to leak out. The real reason is it’s quite moving and they don’t want horror fans to hear that. Because they think horror fans will be put off if it gets “not brutal,” or sentimental or something like that. There is a risk taken in the second act. So does this risk tie into the fourth movie [in the entire franchise, second in the new trilogy], The Bone Temple? BOYLE: There’s a story arc across all three films. The principle of this is what we sold to Sony. And they immediately said, “Don’t say it’s a trilogy.” We said, no, we are going to say it’s a trilogy. Because it is! We’re not going to lie to people! Not all the characters run through all three films, but some of them do. There’s a character in this one, played by Ralph Fiennes, who is a massive part of the second film. Cillian Murphy is an element in the second film and a very dominant element in the third film. So Cillian shows up in the second film, the next one? BOYLE: A bit. A bit. It’s interesting you refer to “the trilogy” with 28 Years Later being the first. As opposed to the two prior films. BOYLE: What Alex and I decided to do was make an original film. But it’s a story influenced by 28 Days Later. But it does not follow what happened in 28 Weeks Later, where the virus got into Europe. For story reasons, we suggested that Europe had driven the virus back across the channel. Then they could isolate the island of Britain and let it die out.

Image via Empire Magazine

I love how excited you are about all this. BOYLE: Yes! It’s ambitious storytelling! It’s not ambitious like Mission: Impossible scale. But it’s ambitious in terms of its intellectual ideas and its emotional reach through the genre. It’s a wonderful genre because it’s got that flex in it. If you’ve got enough horror in it… From what I just saw, there’s a lot. BOYLE: You’ve got plenty. And it allows you to go into other areas. Do you feel invigorated going back to your earlier films and bringing them to this era? BOYLE: I didn’t feel we were going back with this. Well, getting back into this world is something you are doing. BOYLE: But the question of what has happened and what the changes that 28 years make is so demanding, it’s a proper new challenge. Alex originally wrote a script that was more a traditional sequel. Like a “weaponize the virus” type idea. You know, the military or the government, or a corporation weaponizes the virus. Classic Alien-type idea, where you keep the thing going by doing that. We just didn’t want to do that. There was something fresher we could tackle. When you introduced the footage, you made a reference to the Sandra Bullock movie 28 Days. Did you know that was a joke on the American version of The Office? BOYLE: Are you serious? Yes. Pam tells Jim she watched 28 Days Later, waiting for Sandra Bullock to show up. BOYLE: [Laughing] Excellent. I didn’t know that! The joke I told in the intro, it’s a real story! They told me we could not call it 28 Days Later, and we had to change the title! Obviously a big difference between this new film and the prior two is we had the pandemic. How does that inform 28 Years Later? BOYLE: The way that it influenced it is not just the initial startling empty streets we portrayed, and suddenly they are empty. And that’s free will. We all did it of our free will. We were advised not to do it, and we didn’t do it. We did all this strange behavior instead. But after 28 years, what are the risks you’d take? Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character does take his son to the mainland to train him. Live kills. So, why? Why not just stay on the island? BOYLE: Simulation can only take you so far. And he will have to visit the mainland because that’s where they get all their fuel. The fuel needs of that community would be enormous. The amount of wood that would be burned would have to be gathered.
‘28 Years Later’ Explores How Both Its Humans and Virus Survive

Image via Sony Pictures Releasing

We see food sources on the mainland that the infected are eating. In 28 Weeks Later, we are told the infected all died of starvation at 15 weeks… BOYLE: Yes, we are. What changed? BOYLE: What we decided… it’s obvious to talk about the survivors and how they survived. But the less obvious thing is to talk about the virus and how it survives. It survives because it decides the enormous energy that’s extended in the infected, that you see in the first film, would burn people out? The calorie consumption would be enormous, and it would burn people out. So, they’ve got to learn, evolutionary, they are going to die out or evolve. So they learn to hunt. What happened is, we hear later in the film that the virus has acted like a steroid on certain elements of the infected. And that leads to a creature called The Alpha. And he leads the hunting, pack behavior. But there is one other evolutionary element I haven’t mentioned, which I can’t mention because Sony will kill me. In 28 Weeks Later, the plot is about people who have natural immunity. Is that explored at all? BOYLE: No. Why not? That seems like a big deal when the last movie ended. BOYLE: We decided to base this trilogy being inspired by the first film. Not just in terms of character, as the Cillian Murphy character eventually appears. But also in terms of the definition of the virus, its behavior, and reactions to it. Okay … how do you feel about 28 Weeks Later? I can’t tell. BOYLE: What was unique about the first film and was the best choice we ever made about it was that it featured entirely British. It was just that land. And it was extraordinary thinking about something that powerful breaking out in that particular space, and it had to be delt with by the inhabitants of that land. And we decided to concentrate on that. There’s nothing wrong with 28 Weeks Later. We just decided not to follow those story elements. And it’s a bold choice we decided to declare up front by saying the Rage Virus was driven back from mainland Europe. You didn’t direct 28 Weeks Later because you directed Sunshine instead. And, yes, I’m very happy Sunshine exists. People love that movie… BOYLE: Yeah, but the movie did no business at all! I bought a ticket. You have your money from me. BOYLE: Thank you. Look, I love the film. I really love the film. Some of that film, I just think, “wow, did I do that?” It’s like, yeah you did! My daughter watched it a few years ago. I remember watching it, I was in the kitchen, but I’m watching bits of it, and I’m like, “oh, that’s quite good.” Because you get infected… not to make a pun… It is the theme of the day. BOYLE: But you get infected by its performance, and you think, “oh, people didn’t like it.” But then I meet people like you, and I meet a lot of people — and there are many films I’ve made people don’t think this about — but Sunshine is one they really, genuinely think about and really love the film.

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“It’s a Wholly Different Approach”: Danny Boyle Unveils More Details About ’28 Years Later’ Trilogy

The movie debuts on June 20.

Even small things like the percentage of sunlight that can be let in. Most sci-ignores that. Like, say, in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, it’s just a pleasant yellow ball. BOYLE: You can’t look at it from here! So, originally, when we were doing it, Alex wrote two other parts. It was supposed to be a trilogy. What? BOYLE: Yeah. I mean, he only wrote an outline. But they crash into the sun. BOYLE: It was a planetary trilogy. It was to do with the sun itself, with two other stories. What’s interesting is Alex has a natural instinct as a storyteller to want to tell these expanding stories, and that is why 28 Years Later wound up as a trilogy. So what’s the plot of Sunshine 2? BOYLE: Oh, I can’t tell you that. Why? BOYLE: Well, because I can’t remember it in enough detail. But there was an extraordinary idea in one of them. Oh, come on, tell me that. BOYLE: [Laughs] No! Because Alex might use it again. I see.
BOYLE: It’s not an everyday idea. Well, I assume it’s not an everyday idea. The first movie is not an everyday idea. BOYLE: But he might use it! Okay, how about something very vague? So he can still use it, but we Sunshine fans get a little morsel of what could have been. BOYLE: It’s kind of Elon Musk scale, even though he’s lost a lot of credibility. But it was interplanetary stuff, it had more to do with that. So it’s a very rich man… BOYLE: No, there’s no rich man in it. But the idea of looking outside and moving. So, if all of those people who claim to love Sunshine had purchased a ticket, we’d have had three Sunshine movies? BOYLE: We might well have done it, yeah. That’s disappointing. BOYLE: I remember, Tom Rothman — who is the reason you can only watch 28 minutes of 28 Years Later today — I’ve had a number of fights with him over the years. I remember him watching Sunshine, and I remember him saying, “The only hope you offer. The only hope you offer, Danny, is that little green plant shoot in that burnt-out oxygen garden. There’s a little green shoot, and you think there’s hope! And Michelle Yeoh sees hope! Then you kill her!!!! In that moment, you kill her! You can’t do this!” Anyway, I remember a big blowout with him about that.
Danny Boyle Doesn’t Regret Not Directing ‘28 Weeks Later’

Image via 20th Century Fox

Okay, having gotten into all that, do you wish there was a way you could have found a way to have directed 28 Weeks Later? BOYLE: Oh, no, I think Juan Carlos [Fresnadillo] did a fantastic job. I like it a lot. I just can’t figure out how you feel about it. BOYLE: I think you feel about it like … I couldn’t imagine directing it now. It’s very well done. But, yeah, Sunshine took years. Oof. They are tough, space movies. Wow. Just the simple things like let’s do gravity free now. Oh, okay, floating around the room, we will need some wires… Or the Vomit Comet. BOYLE: I went on it. You did? BOYLE: Yeah. I’ve never spoken to anyone who has been on it. What’s that like? BOYLE: When we did it, it cost $3000 a ticket. It’s called parabolic, and they do about 18 of them. And as it drops, you get 20 seconds where it’s weightless. We did it for publicity for Sunshine. Should I tell you what’s extraordinary about it? Nobody tells you this. Please. BOYLE: So, there are tiny little seats in the back, and the rest of it is padded mattresses. Once it’s getting near the height, they say, lie on the floor. And everybody lies on the floor. And the first one, you just begin to float, and it’s an amazing feeling. They say the big thing to watch out for is eye injuries. And you go, what? What happens is, as soon as you begin to float, your body begins to flail because it thinks you are falling or drowning. And you poke people. After you’ve done a couple of them, you start to get really confident, and you stand up, and then you go weightless. For people who wear glasses, it’s the most amazing feeling because you take your glasses off and they float. They give you a little bottle of water, and you can do the mercury water. And when you’re standing and doing it, when gravity returns, your blood flows down … and you start to get an erection. That’s not where I expected this to go. BOYLE: And you feel very sexual! It’s incredible. Then everybody goes, “right, okay, next time,” and they are all waiting for it to happen. So, I’m amazed there hasn’t been an orgy or something.

28 Years Later

Release Date

June 20, 2025

Runtime

126 minutes

Director

Danny Boyle

Producers

Alex Garland, Andrew Macdonald, Bernard Bellew