When the first trailer for 28 Years Later was released, it's fair to say almost everyone was convinced they'd spotted Cillian Murphy as one of the rage-infected zombies.
That was later debunked, of course, but will we see Murphy's Jim in Danny Boyle's long-awaited follow-up to 28 Days Later and - the slightly less well-received - 28 Weeks Later? Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like this movie will mark a reunion for the filmmaker and actor.
Producer Andrew Macdonald has told Empire Online, "[On] this, we wanted him to be involved and he wanted to be involved. He is not in the first film, but I’m hoping there will be some Jim somewhere along the line."
"He’s involved at the moment as an executive producer," Macdonald added, "and I would hope we can work with him in some way in the future in the trilogy." That means he could appear in Nia DaCosta's already-shot sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple or a third instalment which, according to the site, will be helmed by Boyle and hinges on the sequel's success.
"This is very narratively ambitious. Danny and I understood that," writer Alex Garland noted. "We tried to condense it, but its natural form felt like a trilogy."
Apparently, when 28 Years Later begins, the UK's survivors have been left to fend for themselves with the rest of the globe left relatively unaffected. The action takes place on Holy Island, a.k.a. Lindisfarne, an island connected to the UK mainland by a causeway that's only accessible when the tide comes in.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson's Jamie, Jodi Comer's Isla, and their 12-year-old son Spike (played by Alfie Williams) will be the movie's leads.
"It’s a closed and necessarily very tight community," Boyle revealed. "There are very strict defence laws, obviously, to survive that long in what is effectively an ongoing hostile environment. They’ve created a successful community, as they see it." However, when Spike is taken to the mainland to see what's become of his home country, things go badly wrong.
Back to Murphy and and Boyle admitted that he might have made a mistake including a zombie in the trailer who looks so similar to Jim.
"I showed my girlfriend the trailer and she said, 'People will think that’s Cillian,'" the director recalled. "I said, 'Don’t be silly.' I ignored her. So I’ve eaten a bit of humble pie since."
28 Years Later arrives in theaters on June 20, 2025.