The 28 Days Later franchise is back in a massive way, with Danny Boyle’s long-awaited sequel hitting theaters earlier this year and another installment, the upcoming 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, already set to continue the saga on the 2026 movie schedule next January. That next chapter comes from Nia DaCosta, and while the director says Alex Garland’s script was practically flawless, she couldn’t resist making one change. And what she asked for has me even more hyped for the upcoming horror movie.
Speaking at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (via The Hollywood Reporter), DaCosta, a wonderful female horror director, called the project one of the best filmmaking experiences of her career so far. She shared with the crowd:
Making the 28 Years Later sequel was one of the best filmmaking experiences I’ve had. One of the issues I had with Candyman and Marvels was the lack of a really solid script, which is always gonna just wreak havoc on the whole process. But Alex Garland hands you a script, and you’re like, ‘This is amazing.’ You don’t really have to change it, although I did, I basically asked for more infected. [Laughs.] That was, like, my big contribution.
What really made 28 Days Later stand out from the pack of some of the best zombie movies wasn’t just its bleak tone or shaky handheld camerawork, but it was those terrifying, fast-moving infected that felt like pure rage come to life. So when Nia DaCosta admits the one thing she asked for was simply “more infected,” it’s a pretty clear signal she doesn’t plan on watering down what fans come for. Danny Boyle’s earlier follow-up already pushed the genre into new territory, but with the Marvels director at the helm, it sounds like the next chapter is going to lean even harder into the chaos.
The Candyman director also explained what it was like stepping into a cinematic universe built by Danny Boyle and Alex Garland. The previous film ends on a cliffhanger, so she inherited some cast members and locations from Boyle’s movie, but was given the freedom to expand the story with her own sensibilities. She continued:
I inherited an amazing cast, then I was given the leeway to cast the rest of the film. There were a couple of locations I inherited. I was given the leeway to develop all the other locations. Some of it overlapped, like the character Samson — Danny and I would collaborate a bit on the look, but at the end of the day, Danny shoots so different from the way I shoot.
Finding the right balance between continuing specific themes and putting her own spin on things is really important to The Bone Temple. Interestingly, DaCosta almost didn’t take the job. She was finishing up her next movie, Hedda, which stars Tessa Thompson, and her schedule looked crazy tight. But then, after an unexpected dinner with Jonathan Glazer (the director of The Zone of Interest,) she decided to go for it.
Between Garland’s airtight script, Boyle’s groundwork, and Nia DaCosta’s energy (plus her one crucial request for more infected), it’s clear that 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is leaning into that raw, primal fear that fans love, and I cannot wait.