28 Years Later Exec Weighs in on Cillian Murphy Appearing in Sequel

While reports seem fairly confident that Cillian Murphy will return to reprise his role as Jim from 28 Days Later in at least one of the upcoming three 28 Years Later sequels, there are few other details about those movies out there so far. The first of them, titled simply 28 Years Later, will reunite Murphy with screenwriter Alex Garland and director Danny Boyle, but we don’t know much more about it aside from a handful of cast members and the fact that it will be in theaters in June of next year.

Executive producer Tom Rothman spoke about the project this week, confirming that Murphy will return, and praising the plans for the movie as well as another prestige movie he’s producing, Darren Aronofsky’s Caught Stealing. He did have a kind of curious way of framing the Murphy return.

Rothman told Deadline that Murphy will return “in a surprising way and in a way that grows,” adding, “This is Danny at his best, combined with a very commercial genre, like we had with Edgar Wright and Baby Driver. Sometimes when you put a real signature director into a commercial arena, it elevates it. So we have that Darren Aronofsky’s next film with Austin Butler, which is Darren’s most commercial entry ever. And he and Austin are very, very fired up about it. It’s called Caught Stealing, based on a cool book, an action thriller with a signature director to elevate it.”

28 Years Later is set to star Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ralph Fiennes. Currently, details about the plot of the film have not been revealed, though the film is described by Sony as a sequel to 28 Days Later. 

That film followed Jim (Murphy), a bicycle courier who wakes up from a coma only to find that the accidental release of a highly contagious and aggression-inducing virus has caused a total breakdown of society. The film also starred Naomie Harris, Christopher Eccleston, Megan Burns, and Brendan Gleeson. Well received by both audiences and critics, the film was credited for revitalizing the zombie horror genre and numerous zombie-themed films followed. 

28 Days Later got a sequel in 2007 with 28 Weeks Later, following efforts to create a safe zone in London after two young siblings break protocol to find a photograph of their mother and end up reintroducing the Rage Virus to the safe zone in the process. That film starred Rose Byrne, Jeremy Renner, Imogen Poots, Idris Elba, and others. It was fairly positively received, but not quite the massive success that the first one was.

28 Years Later is set to open in theaters on June 20, 2025.