Cillian Murphy will return in the new “28 Weeks Later” trilogy, but fans have to wait a bit.
While talking with IGN, director Danny Boyle revealed Murphy – who played Jim in “28 Days Later” way back in 2002 – would be at the end of “28 Days Later: The Bone Temple” releasing early in 2026 rather than in the first film in the trilogy dropping in June.
“He is in the second one,” Boyle said. “I shouldn’t give away too much. I’ll get killed.”
Boyle – who also directed Murphy in “28 Days Later” – worked with writer Alex Garland on a planned trilogy reboot of the zombie franchise. The first two films in the trilogy were shot back-to-back with Boyle’s “28 Years Later” dropping in June and the follow-up “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” directed by Nia DaCosta coming in 2026. The final film in the trilogy has not been financed yet but Boyle hopes Murphy’s inclusion – in the wake of his “Oppenheimer” Oscar win – will get them there.
“All I can say is you have to wait for Cillian, but hopefully he will help us get the third film financed,” he told Business Insider.
The director added more context to IGN: “It’s the epilogue or an end theme at the end of the first film that gives you a handover to the second film. Although each story completes itself, there’s a handover section to the next film as well. So it’s very ambitious. We haven’t got the money for the third one yet. It will depend how the first one does, I guess. But hopefully if we do okay, they’ll give us the go-ahead for the money and for the third one. Everybody’s standing by for that, really. Including Cillian.”
Fans of the original 2002 film were convinced that Murphy was already seen in the trailer for “28 Years Later” that dropped in December. A quick shot of a zombie walking through a field looked so similar to Murphy’s character Jim that it had many speculating that it was the long-ago survivor. Thankfully, the zombie was not Jim and it’ll just be a bit longer wait before he is back on the screen fighting for his life.
“28 Years Later” stars Aaron Taylor Johnson, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, and Alfie Williams. It lands in theaters on June 20, 2025.
