Anyone old enough to watch and understand a zombie movie has survived an actual virus. Coronavirus is nothing in comparison to the terrifying rage virus of “28 Days Later.”  

According to Academy Award-winning screenwriter Alex Garland, “28 Days Later” is not a zombie film. The film’s rage virus has symptoms similar to Ebola and rabies. Unlike historical slow brain-eating undead, the “28 Days Later” film’s infected are fast-moving, blood-sputtering, and bent on killing. Eight-time Academy Award winner Danny Boyle, who created the film series with Garland, hired trained athletes as the infected. 

On Dec. 10, 2024, the first trailer for “28 Years Later,” the next movie in the franchise to be released on Jun. 20, was released. At first, when I heard about the movie, I was sceptical. I thought this must be a desperate cash grab. Then I watched the trailer and knew that this was something more. Two days later, the trailer hit 10 million views on YouTube. Having seen the movie trailer on numerous occasions, as well as getting my friends to watch it, I strongly suggest viewing it. The trailer almost scared me that the film won’t live up to that standard. 

After a Google search, my tension eased. Boyle and Garland seem to complement each other perfectly. Both of them worked together on the first film in 2002 with a budget of just $8 million, with $84 million in returns. Both of them returned for the newest film, now on a $75 million budget. 

Garland, the writer of the film series, is known for writing and directing multiple A24 films, such as the thriller “Ex Machina,” “Civil War,” and ultra-realistic “Warfare.” Boyle, credited as being one of the most influential British directors of all time, has directed “Yesterday,” “Steve Jobs,” “Trainspotting,” “127 Hours,” and “Slumdog Millionaire.” Garland’s creative genius for depicting the most brutal circumstances possible, matched with Boyle’s inspired realism, creates something truly thrilling. The duo is joined by producer and former “28 Days” star Cillian Murphy, causing speculation of his return to the series. After getting his breakthrough role as Jim, the main survivor of the first film, Murphy went on to “Batman Begins,” then starring in “Peaky Blinders” and “Oppenheimer.” 

Breakthrough roles are common for “28 Days Later.” Jeremy Renner, now known as MCU’s Hawkeye, also starred in “The Hurt Locker” and “The Bourne Legacy.” He started as an American sniper in “28 Weeks Later.” To say that the movies have made a big impact on the world of film would be an understatement. They have recreated the film industry. 

For the first time in the series, multiple well-established and award-winning actors are present. Coming off the award winning “Conclave,” Ralph Fiennes, who has portrayed Lord Voldemort and Nazi Amon Goeth in the past, seems to be playing a hero this time, Dr. Neilson. 

Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in 2017, plays a father, Jamie, who seems to be training his young son about survival.  

Jodie Comer, playing a pregnant mother, made the transition over from the comedy “Free Guy” as well as the drama “The Bikeriders” to the horror film. 

After working on Disney projects like “Solo” and “Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” Erin Kellyman plays Jimmy Ink in “28 Years Later.” Not much is known at this time about the role, but it should be noted that she is one of several characters with the first name Jimmy. British-Irish actor Jack O’Connell joins as a mysterious leader of survivors named Jimmy Crystal.

The cast seems to emulate the majority of the costs. The original film was filmed on a Canon XL-1 film camera, a lower quality than cameras available back then. The resulting effect was much like found footage horror, without the broken storytelling commonly found in the genre. 

Despite having a massive budget for the film, the camera choice for “28 Years Later” is surprising, as well as revolutionary: an iPhone 15 Pro Max. If the film succeeds, this could be the beginning of a new generation of films made for the big screen on a little screen. With that in mind, this movie has a whole industrial impact on the real world. Will Android phones soon come out with their own film-focused phone? Whatever the case, this film will be groundbreaking as the first major film captured entirely by a camera that people have in their pockets. 

The filming of this movie is similar to the previous movies. Boyle tosses the rule book out the window and finds what works. The angles involve uniquely terrifying close-ups on people running, point of views of the infected, panning shots of scenes that audiences don’t notice until the sudden movement of an infected catches you by surprise. If you get queasy easily, don’t worry. Everyone will be. The darkness used in both movies purposely confuses the viewers about what is going on and will make multiple appearances during the newest film. The creativity of the shots, now matched with a massive budget, is a sign that Boyle will hold nothing back. This is his crescendo. 

Something to be noted is that, historically in the series, there is little plot armor. No matter how important a character is, the chances of them dying are high. In the first film, sympathetic character Mark pleads while getting hacked to death by Selena after being bitten. In the second film, only two lead characters make it to the end. Even then, their likelihood of survival is very slim. Even Jim was originally scripted in three separate rewrites to be killed at the film’s end.  

Secondly, these movies are not for the light-hearted. They are realistic, bloody, and the writers hold nothing back when it comes to hard topics: See the “28 Days Later” IMDb Parents Guide. 

What’s truly different about this film is in the title. 28 years have passed. How will the world be after 28 years of complete lawlessness? How will the rest of the world respond? Garland wants the suspense to start long before the popcorn is popped. The encoded messages in the trailers revealed Rageleaks.net, an easter egg website with information about the new movie, and the password and username were revealed in the second trailer through a cipher. The files don’t reveal a lot of definite information about the plot, but it gets you thinking. 

Additionally, “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” was filmed at the same time and will be released next year. The cliffhanger will be sure to leave its viewers clinging to the edge of their seats. Garland wants us to guess; he wants us to think of what will happen so we can be immensely blown away by whatever he has written. “28 Years Later” is not only an upcoming movie, but it’s a whole new generation of storytelling. This film should be put on top of your list for the summer.

Warning: The article below contains an in-depth analysis of “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later.” Predictions for “28 Years Later” and “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” are entirely based on the author’s analysis, reasoning, and connections. Spoilers ahead. You have been warned. 

To get a full understanding of my predictions for the upcoming film ‘28 Years Later’, some background on the series is required. 

The first film, “28 Days Later,” released in 2002, opens with a group of chimpanzees locked in cages, some being strapped down to tables and experimented on. A group of animal activists breaks into the facility and frees the animals, despite the doctor’s best warnings. In the nonfiction book “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston, a real-world connection is that chimpanzees contributed to a nearly chaotic Ebola Reston outbreak in 1989, just outside of Washington, D.C. We see this reflected in the movie as, once free, the chimp bites into the nearest human, who becomes the first human exposed to the rage virus.

The story picks up with Jim, the main character, who wakes up in a hospital after being in a coma, only to find himself as one of the few survivors in London. Teaming up with other survivors, Jim heads to a military blockade outside of Manchester, 218 miles away, where a radio broadcast claims to have a cure for the virus.

In “28 Weeks Later” (2007), the second film in the franchise, the rage virus infected died from starvation. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), led by the United States, has begun rebuilding the United Kingdom.

 All is well until the discovery of a survivor, an asymptomatic infected woman, is made. Upon kissing her husband, the spread starts once more.  

The two trailers for “28 Years Later” give a little context for the plot. Director Danny Boyle has explained that the virus outbreak in Paris, as seen in “28 Weeks Later,” was suppressed and that the United Kingdom is the only country infected. The clever marketing campaign and hidden message within the two trailers, Rageleaks.net, confirms this in the released text file ‘msg.’ and ‘narrows.’’

The trailers show a small island off the mainland, connected by a narrow man-made crossing. The settlement has many pre-industrial features, such as horse-drawn plows and bows that are seen being carried by at least two characters.

The trailer and film posters hint that the rage virus has mutated, affecting some survivors as well. Here are my predictions for how the virus has evolved and how that will affect the plot. 

In the “28 Days Later” comic book series, the origins of the virus are discovered to be the result of a failed developmental rage virus inhibitor. The issue is that getting the inhibitor into the bloodstream isn’t very likely when the test subject is in a burst of rage. One scientist has the idea of splicing the inhibitor with a strand of the Ebola virus, most likely the quickly adaptable Reston strain, found in chimpanzees. Supposedly, Reston is safe for humans if one is vaccinated against it. The virus is used purely for its ability to spread throughout the body rapidly.  

The issue is that inhibitors are a means of calming someone down physically. This means lowering blood pressure by expanding the blood vessels, allowing for oxygen to reach the more rational parts of the brain. Ebola causes one to dispel blood rapidly, internally and externally. So if someone whose heart rate is increased is infected, the result will be brain hemorrhages, cutting off access to the rational brain, and killing it. This leads to blood flooding the lower part of the brain, which controls self-preservation, fight or flight, and sensory recognition. 

That overload of blood, without rational sensory processing, is a directive to perceive all sensory input as a threat. Without the possibility of escaping internal bleeding, human instincts fight anything perceived as a threat. When you combine the effects of internal bleeding with expanding blood vessels, what you get is a highly offensive bloody corpse attacking points of strong sensory input, such as human beings.

“28 Years Later” has one major plot hole that needs to be filled. Being that it is 28 years after the original outbreak, the infected should have died off due to starvation as well as blood loss. 

There are multiple ways the virus could adapt to this problem. One way that seems very likely is reforming the brutality of the virus on the host’s body. The Ebola virus, as explained in “The Hot Zone,” is such a contagious and brutal virus that it does not bother preserving its hosts. By the time the human dies, others will be infected. As far as we can tell, the rage virus only kills human hosts. None of the infected chimps died of blood loss while in their enclosures. They were just aggressive. The virus would need to adapt to conserve the human body, as done with the chimps, rather than dispense all the blood immediately. 

This could be done by ramping up the production of red blood cells by forcing erythropoietin (EPO) into the bone marrow, leading to gallons of blood, and causing the virus to spread further. As a result of this, dark bruises would cover the majority of the body, which is seen in the “28 Years Later” trailer. This makes sense because it can be viewed as a means to longer-term survival. The other benefit of producing high amounts of EPO to the rage virus would be a surplus of stored oxygen in the bloodstream, making the host have more endurance to find an uninfected host to spread to. 

Another more obvious development in the virus is varying levels of mobility and intelligence among the infected. One infected seen in the second trailer looks visibly malnourished and frail, while one appears to possess superhuman strength, the ability to stalk, and use weapons. This is a new development from the previous movies, where the majority of the infected lack all higher-order human qualities. 

As far as the plot goes, the film will have more to do with the interactions between uninfected humans. The infected kill regardless of a person’s immunity, meaning that an asymptomatic person can be killed but not infected by the infected. 

In “28 Weeks Later,” the asymptomatic patient gets killed by her husband after infecting him with her kiss. This shows us that humans with a natural immunity to the effects of the rage virus are a hazard to the majority of survivors. The most reasonable explanation for the virus jumping across the English Channel at the end of “28 Weeks Later” is that one of the survivors was asymptomatic. 

For the protection of both the asymptomatic carriers and the uninfected, the groups would have to separate themselves from each other. 

Just by looking at the trailer, I assume that from the splinter group of asymptomatic carriers sprouted a leader named Jimmy, who teaches that the only cure is to let the infection run its course on humanity. This leaves those with immunity to inherit the planet as the next naturally selected group of people. In the medieval ages, many diseases were seen as a divine consequence sent from a higher power to punish those infected. If you turn this thinking on its head, the asymptomatic carriers could view the virus as the next biblical flood, saving the righteous and killing the rest, their immunity being Noah’s Ark. 

The trailer shows symbolism associated with worship and religion. The uninfected survivor’s island, identified as Holy Island in the second trailer, was the center of Celtic Christianity in the film’s world. Only accessible during low tide, perhaps this is the uninfected version of Noah’s Ark.

The name Jimmy is spoken once and seen twice in the first trailer. First spoke to a boy in a group of kids being sheltered during the original outbreak. This boy is possibly the asymptomatic leader of the cult I referred to above. The second time the word Jimmy shows up is when it’s graffitied next to a bible verse to read: “Behold (Jimmy) his is coming with the clouds.” The name Jimmy is seen once more carved on the back of what appears to be an infected tied up. In addition to these, at least two listed cast roles have the first name Jimmy. I suspect that writer Alex Garland is making no mistake in choosing the name of the original protagonist, Jim, from “28 Days Later.“ 

 The sequel to “28 Years Later,” titled “The Bone Temple,” aligns perfectly with a death-worshipping religion. A temple, after all, is defined as a place of worship. If I am right, the asymptomatic cult would want the virus to spread across the English Channel once more, this time permanently destroying Eurasia and Africa. The rough outline of a plot comes with Edvin Ryding’s role as a Swedish NATO soldier on a mission to the UK. 

A cult bent on leading the next extinction event is trying to infect a Swedish soldier with an immunity to the symptoms, sending him home to start the infection. 

One possibility is that the Bone Temple is a way of infecting someone asymptomatically, by replacing the bone marrow. Ralph Fiennes is cast as Dr. Kealson, a man who seems to be specifically linked to the bone temple. Fiennes has referenced that Dr. Kealson survives through interesting methods, and has radical views on the world. I can’t think of any survival more interesting than transferring an infected person’s bone marrow into yours, so slowly your body can gain immunity. Perhaps the infected bound upside down with “Jimmy” carved into his back was undergoing such a marrow extraction. 

 At the same time, a father and son on a coming-of-age quest accidentally stumble into the equation, as well as an expecting mother possibly seeking out her child’s immunity. Will the father and son protect the Swedish man? Or will they learn of the cult’s plan and kill the Swedish in order to save the world? Will the woman seek out the cult, breaking the long-standing island policy? Is the Swedish NATO team there to kill the mother before she can seek treatment and continue the spread at the Holy Island? We will all know on June 20, 2025.