[Editor’s note: The following article contains spoilers for “28 Years Later,” which is in theaters now.]
Once I spoke to filmmaker Danny Boyle earlier this month after seeing simply the primary 28 minutes of his upcoming “28 Years Later,” the filmmaker was chomping on the bit to share extra, not solely about this movie, however what’s to come back in Nia DaCosta’s “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” (in theaters on January 16, 2026) and a deliberate fourth movie past that (and even hopes for a fifth).
After ready years for the third movie to come back to fruition, Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland clearly have a lot to share within the upcoming movies. Boyle stated of Garland, “He wrote the primary script and the second script very carefully collectively. And we knew we needed to shoot them back-to-back for monetary causes and actor causes and all these kinds of issues that made somewhat sense to do it back-to-back.”
When requested how apparent the setup for “The Bone Temple” shall be on the finish of “28 Years Later,” Boyle stated, “There’s a setup that’s important. What can I say? I can’t actually say something. It’s not sequel-based. It’s not like, oh, the story hasn’t completed. The movie [’28 Years Later’] is full, and then you definitely get this little tail that seems that’s, oh, God. Anyway, we’ll see what folks consider it. It’s completely different.”
Having now seen the complete movie, I agree … and likewise can’t wait to see DaCosta’s movie.
[One more time: The following article contains spoilers for “28 Years Later,” which is in theaters now.]
Boyle’s movie picks up — naturally sufficient — 28 years after the occasions of the primary movie. The UK has been changed into a large quarantine zone, all however deserted by the remainder of the world, leaving anybody left alive to fend for themselves. On a tidal island simply off the coast, a scrappy group of survivors have endured, together with the small household of Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Isla (Jodie Comer), and their son Spike (Alfie Williams).
When the movie opens, Jamie is about to take 12-year-old Spike to the mainland for each his first journey there and (hopefully) his first kill of an contaminated. Alas, their go to attracts the ire of the zombie hordes, significantly a large “Alpha” who follows the pair again to their comparatively secure house.
However whereas Jamie is ready to maintain off the zombies (and kill their chief), the pair’s go to additionally lights one thing in Spike: the opportunity of a human physician within the neighborhood who, he hopes, would possibly be capable of remedy Isla of no matter is ailing her (complications, nosebleeds, reminiscence loss, and horrific ache). Spike doesn’t meet the doc, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) throughout that first go to, solely spies his house, by means of a large hearth that has seemingly been burning for years. What Kelson is burning isn’t a shock: it’s corpses, each human and contaminated.
After Spike and Jamie return to their house, Spike engineers an escape, making off with a baffled Isla, trekking throughout harmful lands, operating into associates and foes, and usually doing the very most in hopes that he can save his beloved mom. Heaps occurs alongside the best way, together with the pair operating right into a pregnant contaminated lady, who provides start to (gasp?) a totally wholesome and regular child, and ultimately discovering their solution to Kelson. Whereas Jamie has tried to move Kelson off as some lunatic, each Spike and Isla are struck by the person, who has turned his life’s work into honoring the lifeless by means of the burning of their stays, which he then fashions into staggering, sweeping memento mori.
That’s the Bone Temple. It’s not a scary place, as Jamie appears to assume it’s, it’s one among deep feeling and compassion for all folks, contaminated or not.
And, no, the Bone Temple itself isn’t any large secret, even earlier than audiences stroll into “28 Years Later.” “[There’s a location move in the film], it’s a geographical… You’ll have seen from the trailer what the Bone Temple is, they usually put it on the poster now. However what the Bone Temple is essential to the center of the movie, actually.”
Whereas Kelson is ready to diagnose Isla, he can also’t remedy her. The selection is made with the briefest of phrases and glances: Kelson mercy-kills Isla and presents her cranium to Spike to position in the perfect spot within the temple. However when Spike returns to his island house within the movie’s remaining moments, he does so for under a really brief interval, simply lengthy sufficient to go away the child (who he has, in fact, named Isla) safely on its shores, together with a notice to his father explaining that he’s secure however going again out into the world (for now) to seek out his means. And whereas he guarantees he shall be again when he’s “prepared,” a fully hysterical and grief-stricken Jamie appears intent on following his son and bringing him house.
In the meantime, younger Spike is again on the mainland, roughing it however clearly surviving. Till a pack of contaminated stumble upon him, chasing him down a winding nation highway. As Spike makes off with some glorious kill pictures, he immediately realizes he’s not alone. Forward, a hanging human seems: Jack O’Connell, sporting gleaming jewellery, a surprisingly blond coif, and a disarmingly clear purple velvet observe go well with. As Boyle promised in our interview, the actor could present up late within the movie, however he leaves an enormous impression, and he’s going to turn out to be “an enormous character” in “The Bone Temple.”
Because the smirking O’Connell (he’s billed as “Sir Jimmy Crystal,” one among many characters whose names embody a spinoff of Cillian Murphy’s authentic movie lead, Jim) congratulates a shocked Spike on his taking pictures prowess, the remainder of his gang seems, all equally outfitted. They provide to assist, and never solely take down the contaminated who’ve come after Spike, appear to completely relish the killing, the maiming, the gutting. For these guys, this all seems … enjoyable?
And whereas this could be sufficient of an introduction, Boyle then zooms into a specific piece of jewellery round O’Connell’s neck: a gleaming gold cross, hung the wrong way up. Seems, this isn’t the primary time we’ve met Jimmy. Boyle’s movie really opens throughout the first outbreak, following a horrified household within the Scottish Highlands who’re all (together with many ladies and youngsters) overtaken by the early zombie hordes. The one who will get away? Younger Jimmy, who sees his total household slaughtered, solely to run to his father’s church for security, the place his preacher father is embracing the contaminated, deeming them saved.
After all, they aren’t, and Jimmy hides underneath the church’s floorboards as his father is devoured and contaminated. What has turn out to be of that child within the 28 years which have handed? That’s what we’ll see in “The Bone Temple,” which guarantees to not solely deliver Sir Jimmy Crystal to the fore, however to see him up towards a raging Jamie.
When it got here to contemplating these three movies of a sure piece, Boyle pointed to DaCosta, who it appears had some unimaginable insights into this trilogy. “I bear in mind asking Nia [about this new trilogy], ‘What do you assume it’s about?,’” Boyle referred to as. “It gained’t essentially find yourself being about this as a result of movies change, however I stated, ‘What do you assume it’s about?’ And she or he stated, ‘Effectively, I feel the primary one is in regards to the nature of household. The second’s in regards to the nature of evil. And the third one is in regards to the nature of redemption.’”
A Sony manufacturing, “28 Years Later” is in theaters now.