28 Years Later Director Reveals Why Now Was the Perfect Time for the Sequel

Though sequels and franchise films are a dime a dozen currently, the director of 28 Years Later revealed why now was the perfect time to revisit the critically and commercially acclaimed horror series. Oscar-winner and the director of the original 28 Days Later film Danny Boyle spoke to ComicBook in advance of the sequel’s release on June 20th. Boyle pointed to the current state of the world, both on a geopolitical and societal level, as making 28 Years Later feel as relevant and timely as it does now, perhaps more so than the original film did when it was released in 2002.

Speaking with both Boyle and 28 Years Later‘s writer/producer Alex Garland, we asked if there were any specific current events that compelled them to revisit the original film and informed their storytelling in this sequel. Their answer might surprise you.

28 Years Later‘s Danny Boyle Reveals How Horror Movies Become Timely to Audiences Without Intention

“Time is strange because films take so long to make that things come in and out of focus with them. You may focus on individual details around the world and around people’s own experiences on the day. But, you know, six months a year later, they’ve changed,” Boyle mused. He went on, “People read into it, they look at Gaza, they look at the treatment of immigrants, of migrants. You can look at Covid, you can look at Brexit on a small scale political degree to do with British political circumstances at the moment, the isolation of the island, even though it’s an imposed isolation in our story and it’s a chosen isolation in the political (sphere).”

Though there are several threads and themes that feel particularly relevant and immediate in 28 Years Later, Boyle also credits the horror genre as the reason viewers can watch the film and take away so many different messages.

“[Horror] has that flexibility where you can read things into it and it’s transparent at times to another world, and then it closes again. And that’s beautiful.” Boyle explained about the prismatic nature of filmmaking in the genre. “We didn’t set out to make a big political movie. We set out to make a really compelling story, which owed a little to the original, but stood on its own as a moviegoing experience.”

Sony’s official description for 28 Years Later reads: “It’s been almost three decades since the rage virus escaped a biological weapons laboratory, and now, still in a ruthlessly enforced quarantine, some have found ways to exist amidst the infected. One such group of survivors lives on a small island connected to the mainland by a single, heavily-defended causeway. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.”

28 Years Later stars Aaron Taylor Johnson, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Alfie Williams, Erin Kellyman and Jack O’Connell. It’s one of three sequels planned in the franchise. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is slated for release next year and will feature the star of the original film, Cillian Murphy, reprising his role as Jim. A third film in the 28 Years Later cycle, concluding the trilogy, is also indevelopment.

28 Years Later will be released exclusively in theaters June 20th.