The Best Movie Trilogy of the 2020s Gets the Update Fans Wanted After Disappointing Start to the Year

Like every generation, the 2020s have started to take shape with the movie trilogies that will eventually define the era for generations to come. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune series, with the third film set to arrive this holiday, seems poised to become the peak example for the decade, but there are a handful of others that are also fan favorites. Ti West’s X trilogy, a series of slasher films that arrived in quick succession, fit the bill, and the Sonic the Hedgehog series has also surpassed the trilogy moniker and is on its way to becoming the defining movie franchise of the 2020s.

Lurking beneath them all, though, is what could become the best trilogy of the entire decade, with 28 Years Later. Though the first film in this series received rave reviews and stellar box office in the summer of 2025, the second film in the series, this year’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, was a box office bomb (despite even better reviews). It seemed like the series was in jeopardy of not actually happening, but now filmmaker Danny Boyle has given us the update we want to hear. “It’ll be, hopefully, next year,” the filmmaker told JoBlo, but that’s only half the update about what’s next for the series.

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When 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple bombed at the box office, grossing $25 million domestically, a drop of 65% compared to the first movie, it seemed like the series was in grave danger of never being completed. This would have been a tragedy for many reasons, given how long fans had waited for a sequel, but also how the series clearly set up what its next story would be by reintroducing Cillian Murphy’s Jim in a major sequel bait tease. According to Boyle, though, the timing of production simply didn’t work out for filming to start this year.

“We ran out of time. It’s set in an area of Britain [where] you can only film in certain times of the year. We ran out of time this year – we literally ran out of time,” Boyle noted. “But there’s the enthusiasm there, and Alex (Garland) has done a wonderful script for it.”

What Boyle is certainly referring to when he teases this mysterious piece of the UK that requires precise timing is Lindisfarne, aka Holy Island, the location that was the primary setting for the human settlement in the original 28 Years Later. Just off the coast of England, the island has a roadway that is overtaken by water twice a day with the tide. On top of that, specific permits need to be acquired since the island is home to protected ecology and historical sites.

Assuming that this is, in fact, the place that Boyle is referring to, it not only makes sense for the story but gives us a glimpse of where things are headed for the series. At the end of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, Spike and Kellie are running from infected when Cillian Murphy’s Jim and his daughter, Sam, are prepared to come to their rescue. Given the need to film on Lindisfarne, it seems likely that the series is poised to pull an Avengers and mesh all of its storylines into one, something every fan could have predicted for the last movie anyway.

This means that the third 28 Years Later, which is currently without a full subtitle, will put together the plot threads of Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Jamie and the infected-born baby from the island village with Spike and the now Jimmy-free Kellie, plus Cillian Murphy’s Jim, his daughter Sam, and hopefully, Naomie Harris as Selena. There’s another major piece of the puzzle as well, Chi Lewis-Parry as “Samson,” the former Alpha now cured of his Rage by Dr. Kelson. In the end, it’s good that this trilogy is now on its way to actually being completed, and it makes sense why it might take some time, because there are a lot of pieces that need to come together for it.