[Editor’s note: The following article contains spoilers for “28 Years Later,” which is in theaters now.]
When I spoke to filmmaker Danny Boyle earlier this month after seeing just the first 28 minutes of his upcoming “28 Years Later,” the filmmaker was chomping at the bit to share more, not only about this film, but what’s to come in Nia DaCosta’s “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” (in theaters on January 16, 2026) and a planned fourth film beyond that (and even hopes for a fifth).
After waiting years for the third film to come to fruition, Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland clearly have plenty to share in the upcoming films. Boyle said of Garland, “He wrote the first script and the second script very closely together. And we knew we had to shoot them back-to-back for financial reasons and actor reasons and all those sorts of things that made a little sense to do it back-to-back.”
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When asked how obvious the setup for “The Bone Temple” will be at the end of “28 Years Later,” Boyle said, “There’s a setup that’s significant. What can I say? I can’t really say anything. It’s not sequel-based. It’s not like, oh, the story hasn’t finished. The film [’28 Years Later’] 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.”
Having now seen the full film, I agree … and also cannot wait to see DaCosta’s film.
[One more time: The following article contains spoilers for “28 Years Later,” which is in theaters now.]
Boyle’s film picks up — naturally enough — 28 years after the events of the first film. The UK has been turned into a massive quarantine zone, all but abandoned by the rest of the world, leaving anyone left alive to fend for themselves. On a tidal island just off the coast, a scrappy group of survivors have endured, including the small family of Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Isla (Jodie Comer), and their son Spike (Alfie Williams).
When the film opens, Jamie is about to take 12-year-old Spike to the mainland for both his first trip there and (hopefully) his first kill of an infected. Alas, their visit draws the ire of the zombie hordes, particularly a massive “Alpha” who follows the pair back to their relatively safe home.
But while Jamie is able to hold off the zombies (and kill their leader), the pair’s visit also lights something in Spike: the possibility of a human doctor in the vicinity who, he hopes, might be able to cure Isla of whatever is ailing her (headaches, nosebleeds, memory loss, and horrific pain). Spike doesn’t meet the doc, Dr. Ian Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) during that first visit, only spies his home, by way of a massive fire that has seemingly been burning for years. What Kelson is burning isn’t a surprise: it’s corpses, both human and infected.
After Spike and Jamie return to their home, Spike engineers an escape, making off with a baffled Isla, trekking across dangerous lands, running into friends and foes, and generally doing the very most in hopes that he can save his beloved mother. Lots happens along the way, including the pair running into a pregnant infected woman, who gives birth to (gasp?) a completely healthy and normal baby, and eventually finding their way to Kelson. While Jamie has tried to pass Kelson off as some lunatic, both Spike and Isla are struck by the man, who has turned his life’s work into honoring the dead through the burning of their remains, which he then fashions into staggering, sweeping memento mori.
That’s the Bone Temple. It’s not a scary place, as Jamie seems to think it is, it’s one of deep feeling and compassion for all people, infected or not.
And, no, the Bone Temple itself is no big secret, even before audiences walk into “28 Years Later.” “[There’s a location move in the film], it’s a geographical… You’ll have seen from the trailer what the Bone Temple is, and they put it on the poster now. But what the Bone Temple is very important to the heart of the film, really.”
While Kelson is able to diagnose Isla, he also can’t cure her. The choice is made with the briefest of words and glances: Kelson mercy-kills Isla and presents her skull to Spike to place in the very best spot in the temple. But when Spike returns to his island home in the film’s final moments, he does so for only a very short period, just long enough to leave the baby (who he has, of course, named Isla) safely on its shores, along with a note to his father explaining that he’s safe but going back out into the world (for now) to find his way. And while he promises he will be back when he is “ready,” an absolutely hysterical and grief-stricken Jamie seems intent on following his son and bringing him home.
Meanwhile, young Spike is back on the mainland, roughing it but clearly surviving. Until a pack of infected come upon him, chasing him down a winding country road. As Spike makes off with some excellent kill shots, he suddenly realizes he’s not alone. Ahead, a striking human appears: Jack O’Connell, sporting gleaming jewelry, a shockingly blond coif, and a disarmingly clean purple velvet track suit. As Boyle promised in our interview, the actor may show up late in the film, but he leaves a giant impression, and he’s going to become “a huge character” in “The Bone Temple.”
As the smirking O’Connell (he’s billed as “Sir Jimmy Crystal,” one of many characters whose names include a derivative of Cillian Murphy’s original film lead, Jim) congratulates a shocked Spike on his shooting prowess, the rest of his gang appears, all similarly outfitted. They offer to help, and not only take down the infected who have come after Spike, seem to absolutely relish the killing, the maiming, the gutting. For these guys, this all looks … fun?
And while this would be enough of an introduction, Boyle then zooms into a particular piece of jewelry around O’Connell’s neck: a gleaming gold cross, hung upside down. Turns out, this is not the first time we’ve met Jimmy. Boyle’s film actually opens during the first outbreak, following a horrified family in the Scottish Highlands who are all (including many women and children) overtaken by the early zombie hordes. The one who gets away? Young Jimmy, who sees his entire family slaughtered, only to run to his father’s church for safety, where his preacher father is embracing the infected, deeming them saved.
Of course, they aren’t, and Jimmy hides under the church’s floorboards as his father is devoured and infected. What has become of that kid in the 28 years that have passed? That’s what we’ll see in “The Bone Temple,” which promises to not only bring Sir Jimmy Crystal to the fore, but to see him up against a raging Jamie.
When it came to considering these three films of a certain piece, Boyle pointed to DaCosta, who it seems had some incredible insights into this trilogy. “I remember asking Nia [about this new trilogy], ‘What do you think it’s about?,’” Boyle called. “It won’t necessarily end up being about this because films change, but I said, ‘What do you think it’s about?’ And she said, ‘Well, I think the first one is about the nature of family. The second one’s about the nature of evil. And the third one is about the nature of redemption.’”
A Sony production, “28 Years Later” is in theaters now.
