Scary stuff: filmmaker Danny Boyle said that there were fears from some studio brass that reviews calling “28 Years Later” a moving tear-jerker might spoil its box office potential.
“Obviously, the core audience is a horror audience, and they’re concerned if too many reviews call it a weepie. … But the first film was actually very moving, too,” Boyle told The Independent. “So [hiding the film’s tearjerker story] is born out of the right instincts. They’re just a bit worried [about selling it on that].” Boyle dropped the admittedly banger tagline “you’ll weep with terror” during that interview, as well.
Boyle also told Variety that “women now form an important part of the horror audience.” He had insisted that women would be interested in the first film, “28 Days Later,” when they were trying to “big up” Naomie Harris’ character. “They were dismissive of women watching horror movies. That’s changed and I think that’s a very good thing, obviously,” he said.
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Earlier this month, Boyle spoke with IndieWire about the “connected tissue” between films in the “28” series, as well as the real-life inspirations that were used to craft the sequel.
“The virus itself has adapted, and its hosts, the humans who carry it, are changing with it. I think the authorities quarantine the island, isolate it, lock it down, and imagine that it will burn itself out. And it doesn’t. Nature won’t do that. Ebola does that, apparently. That’s one of the ways that we haven’t all died of Ebola because when it breaks out in remote villages. It is so virulent that it hasn’t got time to spread. It literally just burns itself out. But this one doesn’t, and it’s learned that its hosts can have behavioral changes, which influences the rest of the story. And you see elements of that in ‘The Bone Temple,’ as well. It grew out of the idea that they expended so much energy, they would just burn out. There’d be none of them left,” Boyle explained.
“28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” is set for a January 16, 2026 release, but Boyle insisted that viewers are not getting just “half a film” with “28 Years Later.”
“The film is complete, and then you get this little tail that appears that’s, ‘Oh, God. Anyway, we’ll see what people think of it.’ It is different,” he said.
