Arriving in 2002, Danny Boyle’s ’28 Days Later’ was a revolutionary zombie film. Not only did it help reinvigorate the genre as a whole, but it gave it a dynamic twist by making the zombies fast-moving, almost animalistic creatures, not the slow, shambling creatures from earlier flicks. The film won a number of accolades, including Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards, and the Best British Film Empire Award. Boyle directed, with a screenplay by Alex Garland. But while Boyle executive produced the sequel, ’28 Weeks Later’, neither he nor Garland, took a direct role.
Both Boyle and Garland have gone on to greater success. Boyle won an Academy Award in 2009 for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, and was nominated in 2011 for ‘127 Hours’. Garland, who has begun directing his own movies, was nominated for the screenplay for 2016’s ‘Ex Machina‘.
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But it’s possible that the pair will reunite for a new sequel to ’28 Days Later’, called either ’28 Months’ or ’28 Years Later’… provided Garland can find the time.
In an interview with The Independent, Boyle teased:
“Alex Garland and I have a wonderful idea for the third part. It’s properly good. The original film led to a bit of a resurgence in the zombie drama and it doesn’t reference any of that. It doesn’t feel stale at all. He’s concentrating on directing his own work at the moment, so it’s stood in abeyance really, but it’s a you-never-know.”
Boyle is currently promoting his latest film– a different kind of fantasy, ‘Yesterday’ about a musician/songwriter Jack Malik (Himesh Patel) who one day wakes up in a world where The Beatles never existed. The picture is getting rave reviews and opens this weekend in the US.
Meanwhile, Garland is working on ‘Devs’ a new technology-laced thriller for FX, which he created, wrote and is directing. He has also been announced as directing a film version of the video game ‘Halo’.
But back in 2015, he addressed this potential sequel, saying:
“We’ve got an idea. Danny [Boyle] and [producer] Andrew [Macdonald] and I have been having quite serious conversations about it so it is a possibility. It’s complicated. There’s a whole bunch of reasons why it’s complicated, which are boring so I won’t go into, but there’s a possibility.
“It’s more likely to be 28 Months [Later] than 28 Years. 28 Years gives you one more place to go. 28 Decades is probably taking the piss.”
It’s anyone’s guess whether these two can get their schedules to line up in order to make this happen.
But if the stars do align, would you be interested in another installment of the ’28’ saga?
