28 Years Later, the long-awaited sequel to cult classic horror zombie movie 28 Days Later, doesn’t come out until June 2025, but we now have the announcement of the second film in the planned trilogy alongside its release date.
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple from Columbia Pictures launches January 16, 2026. It’s directed by Nia DaCosta (The Marvels, Candyman), with a screenplay from original 28 Days Later writer Alex Garland. The producers are Danny Boyle, who directed 28 Days Later and is directing 28 Years Later, Alex Garland, Andrew Macdonald, Peter Rice, and Bernard Bellew. Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy, the protagonist of 28 Days Later, is executive producing.
The Bone Temple, then, releases just half a year after 28 Years Later as the second film in the trilogy. The third film has yet to be announced.
28 Days Later was one of Cillian Murphy’s breakout roles back in 2002. He played Jim, a bicycle courier who woke from a coma to find himself in a post-apocalyptic London after an aggression-inducing virus led to the breakdown of society. Murphy failed to return for 2007's 28 Weeks Later, which followed a different cast of characters. But he is executive producer of the 28 Years Later and has a mystery role in the film (that zombie in the 28 Years Later trailer isn’t Cillian Murphy, though).
28 Years Later is set almost three decades after the virus was first unleashed upon the world. Here’s the official synopsis:
Academy Award-winning director Danny Boyle and Academy Award-nominated writer Alex Garland reunite for 28 Years Later, a terrifying new story set in the world created by 28 Days Later. 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.
In October, Ralph Fiennes discussed his role in 28 Years Later, confirming he plays a good doctor (as opposed to an evil doctor, which definitely exists in the 28 Days universe). He also mentioned the revival was a trilogy and that two films had been shot.
"Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities," Fiennes said. "And it centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.”
After a long period of unavailability online, 28 Days Later was recently made available to rent or buy digitally.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
