Even though the film 28 Months Later: The Temple of the Dead flopped at the box office, Danny Boyle still intends to close out his ambitious trilogy.
In June 2025, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland revived their zombie franchise, 18 years after 28 Weeks Later, the follow-up to 28 Days Later. Rather than wrapping up a trilogy, 28 Months Later aimed to kick off a new, even more experimental saga. The second installment, titled The Temple of the Dead and directed by Nia DaCosta, was shot following the first part, with a release less than seven months after the return of the enraged infected [strike the superfluous mentions].
Moreover, the trilogy was officially announced even before the second film hit theaters, which was already a risky and uncertain move given the first film 28 Months Later’s already tepid results: $151 million worldwide at the box office, including $70 million domestic, on a budget of at least $60 million. But where things get really tricky is with The Temple of the Dead. The second film earned relatively solid press, but underperformed at the box office with $58 million worldwide on a budget comparable to the first.
Since then, the saga has hovered in a kind of fog, despite the reassuring promise of bringing Cillian Murphy back into a central role. However, according to Danny Boyle, plans hadn’t changed so much; they’d simply been delayed.
28 Months Later?
Given that Spike, the protagonist of the first two films, is 12 years old and his actor, Alfie Williams, is already 15, one might have expected the shooting of the third installment to begin fairly soon after The Temple of the Dead (shot in August 2024) so the actor wouldn’t have aged too much in the interim. But filming did not take place in 2025, and there is no announced date for 2026 either.
That’s feeding a bit more concern about a possible cancellation. Yet Boyle gave an interview to JoBlo where he attempted to offer reassurance:
“We ran out of time. The shoot is happening in a region of Britain where filming can only take place during certain times of the year. This year, we literally ran out of time. So, hopefully, it’ll be next year. The enthusiasm is there, and Alex (Garland) has written an amazing screenplay.”
If one takes into account that 28 Months Later began filming in early May 2024 in England and The Temple of the Dead was shot immediately after in August of the same year, perhaps it’s Cillian Murphy’s schedule that has kept the cameras from starting up again in 2026, though that’s only a guess. The actor, who reprises Jim, the central character from the original 28 Days Later who we glimpsed at the end of the last installment, is currently tied up with filming A Quiet Place Part III, which began in mid-May in the United States, as confirmed by John Krasinski. Prior to that, he was presumably booked for Damien Chazelle’s next project, which began production in March 2026.
Another small glimmer of hope: Alfie Williams recently shared an Instagram photo showing him practicing archery, with the caption: “Great to be back.” For now, no formal release date has been announced for the third installment, but the project still feels alive, even if fans shouldn’t expect it to debut imminently.
