28 Years Later: 17 Behind-The-Scenes Secrets You Probably Didn't Know

Yahoo

20 hours ago

28 Years Later has been in cinemas for just over a week, but it's fast becoming one of the most talked-about cinematic events of the year.
Landing rave reviews from critics and a great reception at the box office, the long-awaited latest instalment in Danny Boyle's iconic post-apocalyptic horror franchise has most definitely lived up to the hype.
Starring Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes and newcomer Alfie Williams, the third instalment in the series follows a survivor community living on an island, before some of the group leave to uncover the secrets and horrors that lie on the mainland.
And this is only the first in a whole new trilogy continuing the story, with sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple having already been shot and due for release early next year.
To tide you over before then, though, here are 17 behind-the-scenes secrets about how the new movie was made…
The Oscar-winning director famously shot 2002's 28 Days Later on digital cameras, giving the movie its distinctive grainy look and kinetic urgency. But for the new sequel 28 Years Later, the Trainspotting director went for something a little different.
According to IGN, certain sequences were shot with iPhones, sometimes using as many as 20 at a time.
Danny described that method of shooting with a rig as 'basically a poor man's bullet time', referencing the iconic slow-mo effect pioneered by The Matrix.
'Wherever, it gives you 180 degrees of vision of an action, and in the editing you can select any choice from it, either a conventional one-camera perspective or make your way instantly around reality, time-slicing the subject, jumping forward or backward for emphasis,' he said. 'As it's a horror movie, we use it for the violent scenes to emphasise their impact.'
While the director outlined the technical reasoning for shooting on iPhones, there was also another important consideration that motivated his decision-making.
'Filming with iPhones allowed us to move without huge amounts of equipment,' Danny told Wired in an interview.
'A lot of Northumbria looks like it would have looked 1,000 years ago. So we were able to move quickly and lightly to areas of the countryside that we wanted to retain their lack of human imprint.'
While this was seemingly partly a creative decision, it feels like a particularly significant choice from the director, whose 2000 movie The Beach infamously drove tourists to the picturesque Thai island where it was filmed and caused significant coral reef damage.
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28 Years Later's grim Bone Temple site featuring a towering pyre of human skulls took around six months to construct, with the design team using over 250,000 replica bones and 5,500 skulls, according to Time Out.
This set was located in Redmire, a village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, with production designer Carson McColl claiming: 'There was something about that location that felt that it's remained unchanged for a long, long time'.
It may have come as a bit of a surprise to cinemagoers to see Northumberland's famous Sycamore Gap tree briefly featured in one scene, given that it was felled in an act of vandalism in 2023, resulting in two men being found guilty of two counts of criminal damage.
Standing for over 150 years, it was made internationally famous in 1991's Robin Hood: Prince in Thieves starring Kevin Costner.
However, as 28 Years Later only began shooting in May of last year, The Beach director revealed how he recreated the tree with the help of some special effects.
Speaking to Sky News, he explained: 'It had already been destroyed by the time we came to film, so we recreated it for the same reasons that you see the Queen in this… all the things that have happened to us in the last 28 years have not happened.'
The tree stump still stands, which could take another 150 years to return to its former glory. 'So we've recreated it deliberately to say that it was still growing… which is a wonderful tribute,' Danny added.
Speaking at a Newcastle gala screening in June, the director hailed the North East region of England as a 'magic' place to make movies.
Not only did he describe the area's landscapes as 'spectacular', he revealed that one location in particular drew him up North for 28 Years Later.
'The first reason we're here is Holy Island,' he explained, according to Cultured North East, referring to the island also known as Lindisfarne.
'It's a wonderful premise for a story, and the idea of a tidal causeway island is captivating. People get that idea very quickly,' he continued. 'So in many ways it's the perfect setting for this kind of film and this kind of idea.'
It goes without saying that Danny Boyle's movies are iconic for their music choices, from Underworld's Born Slippy in Trainspotting to A.R. Rahman's Jai Ho in Slumdog Millionaire.
Of course, the music for 28 Years Later was never going to be an afterthought. Scottish hip-hop group Young Fathers were tasked with this mighty responsibility, with Danny describing them as 'sort of like the Beach Boys, but so hardcore' in an interview with Rolling Stone UK.
'It was a huge risk because they'd never done a movie before and it's that thing with any pop group, are you gonna trust the whole movie to them? But you go yeah! Yeah!'
Can you remember the last time a movie trailer sent chills down your spine like this one did?
The terrifying chant that you hear in the teaser – which also features briefly in the film – is a recitation of the poem Boots by Rudyard Kipling.
Kipling's poem was first published in 1903 and was intended to capture the monotony of soldiers marching in war, while the recording used in 28 Years Later is more than 100 years old, recorded in 1915 by the actor Taylor Holmes.
Holmes' recitation of the poem starts quite formulaic, but grows more frenzied by the end, and is considered so disturbing that it has even been used by the American military to train soldiers to resist psychological torture, used in what is called SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape) schools.
Director Danny knew that they'd found the right vibe for the trailer as soon as he heard the chilling poem for himself.
'And then we watched the first trailer that Sony sent us – Alex [Garland] and I remember it vividly – and there was this [recording] on it, and we were like, 'Fucking hell!' It was startling in its power,' Danny told Variety.
'The trailer is a very good trailer, but there was something more than that about that [recording], about that tune, about that poem. We tried it in our archive sequence, and it was like it was made for it.'
The recording made its way into the trailer on the suggestion of Megan Barbour, then director of music at the Buddha Jones agency, who knew the recording via someone who had actually been in the SERE training.
'We wanted to work off the strength of the visuals and didn't want a lot of dialogue,' David Fruchbom, Sony EVP of global creative advertising, told Variety. 'Buddha Jones [submitted] three different teaser trailers, and the one that had 'Boots' was clearly the way to go.'
With more than 80% of the film being shot at North East locations including Holy Island, Hexham and Waskerley in County Durham, 28 Years Later provided an opportunity for locals to be in the movie.
Among extras was Hexham town councillor Roger Higgin, who told the Hexham Courant: 'It was a great experience, and it's fabulous that so much of the region provided the locations and the cast. I'm confident it'll be an amazing film.'
Another extra called Peter Thompson put himself forward for the opportunity because he heard casting was looking for runners and cyclists. 'I do a lot of cycling around South West Northumberland,' he shared, being chosen as one of the 'infected'.
A supermarket worker called Laura Fulguzi was stacking shelves in Asda when she got the message that she'd been selected, according to the BBC.
With the movie taking place nearly three decades after the rage virus infected society in his original story, Danny highlighted the logic behind one very key detail.
'I mean, if you're recently infected, you'd have some clothes, but if you've been infected for a long time, the clothes would just disintegrate with the way that you behave,' he told People.
In other words, the infected are naked. However due to the presence of now 14-year-old Alfie Williams in the movie, fully naked actors were not allowed on set under the Child Sex Offences Act.
'We never knew that going in, it was a nightmare,' Danny added.
'Interestingly, because there was a 12-year-old boy on set, you're not allowed for anybody to be naked, not really naked, so they look naked, but it's all prosthetics,' he elaborated.
That only came to light during a conversation with the intimacy coordinator on the set. 'So it's like, 'Oh my God,' so we had to make everybody prosthetic genitals.'
When the trailer for 28 Years Later arrived, excited fans believed they had spotted an infected character who bore an uncanny resemblance to Cillian Murphy – who, of course, starred as bicycle courier Jim in 28 Days Later.
Before this was debunked, the internet ran wild with fan theories, suggesting that his character had succumbed to the virus in the new version of the story.
Speaking to Empire, Danny admitted that he waved away concerns that people might mistake the mystery character for Cillian.
'I showed my girlfriend the trailer and she said, 'People will think that's Cillian.' I said, 'Don't be silly,'' he said. 'I ignored her. So I've eaten a bit of humble pie since.'
First there was 28 Days Later, then 28 Weeks Later (directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, while Danny stayed on as executive producer). Surely the logical sequel would be 28 Months Later?
Well, that was definitely a possibility at one point. 'There was a time when Months was absolutely on the table,' writer Alex Garland told Polygon. He even wrote a script under that name, but his relationship with the director became rocky after they worked together on the 2007 movie Sunshine together, before they later patched things up again.
Speaking to NME in a 2022 interview for the anniversary of 28 Days Later, Cillian himself noted that completing the trilogy could be tricky: 'I think there's a problem with that, in that I'm 20 years older…'
However they seem to have solved that problem by going with Years, instead, but we don't know how much was carried over between scripts.
It might be the last movie you'd expect to influence a zombie thriller in 2025, but Ken Loach's iconic 1969 coming-of-age drama Kes was a big inspiration to writer Alex Garland.
'I ripped off this film called Kes, a very unexpected thing to rip off in a zombie movie,' he explained in an interview with ScreenRant.
'The script I delivered and Kes, both focused on the experience of a young lad, and because I am ripping it off, I wanna direct people to the source material.'
We know scouser Jodie Comer is a master of accents, but when it came to playing a Geordie in 28 Years Later, she turned to inspiration in a very unlikely place.
Speaking in an interview with Elle last year, the Killing Eve star revealed that she'd been watching old clips of Cheryl Tweedy from ber X Factor days to prepare.
Jimmy Savile and 28 Years Later are two things you would never expect to find in the same sentence. Yet, in the new movie there's a truly wild twist that references the disgraced media personality (yes, seriously).
At the end of the film, 28 Years Later introduces Jack O'Connell as cult leader Sir Jimmy Crystal.
Jimmy and his followers can be seen wearing white-blond wigs and tracksuits, bearing a striking resemblance to the late presenter who, after his death in 2011, was accused of sexually abusing hundreds of people, including children.
According to Danny, that's completely intentional, explaining to Business Insider: 'He's as much to do with pop culture as he is to do with sportswear, to do with cricket, to do with the honours system.
'It's all kind of twisting in this partial remembrance, clinging onto things and then recreating them as an image for followers.'
'He's a kaleidoscope, isn't he?' writer Alex noted, referring to the movie character. 'A sort of trippy, fucked up kaleidoscope.'
Early on in the film, we see a young Jimmy watching Teletubbies in a group of children before the 'infected' break in and wreak havoc. As he makes his escape, the boy contemplates bringing a Power Rangers toy with him, but ultimately leaves it behind.
When we see Jimmy and his followers, many have pointed out that their fight sequences references both Teletubbies and Power Rangers in a crossover no one could have predicted.
After years of speculation about whether the 28 Days Later franchise would be revived at all, Danny Boyle has since confirmed his plans for a brand new trilogy.
The next film, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, was actually filmed back-to-back with the new movie, and is currently slated to come out 16 January 2026.
The Marvels writer Nia DaCosta will be directing that one in place of Danny (who is staying on as a producer), with Alex Garland having once again written the script.
Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Danny explained that it would have been 'insane not to' shoot consecutively, due to practical and financial considerations.
28 Years Later is in cinemas now.
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