Everything We Know About The 28 Years Later Cast So Far

Fans of the 28 franchise are experiencing gruesome flashbacks to the original film, 28 Days Later, which first hit the screen in 2002. Almost three decades after the release of a genre-defining thriller, 28 Years Later, the much-anticipated sequel of the original storyline, is finally set to be released in UK cinemas on June 20, 2025, adding to the list of exciting movies coming out in 2025.

The heart-pumping teaser trailer for the upcoming zombie thriller 28 Years Later has racked up such an insane number of global views that it has become the second most-watched horror trailer of all time (per IMDb).

With the reunion of director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland, the movie promises a fresh take on the original zombie hit. Based on what we’ve seen in the viral trailer, 28 Years Later is set to be another post-apocalyptic horror masterpiece by Boyle. This time, however, we will see more human survivors and even antagonists besides the notorious rage virus.

Here’s everything we know so far about the zombie follow-up and why it’s generating so much excitement.

It’s official: Jodie Comer will play the role of Isla, a pregnant woman living with her husband and son in a community on Lindisfarne. Comer’s award-filled career — an Emmy award for her role in Killing Eve and a Tony for Prima Facie — doubles our expectations for Boyle’s 28 Years Later.

Meanwhile, the Golden Globe Award-winner Aaron Taylor-Johnson is seen in the teaser firing arrows at flesh-eating zombies. The Kick-Ass star with a scientifically perfect face (per Dr. Julian De Silva) will portray Isla’s husband (Jamie) in the forthcoming survival thriller.

The star-studded film also welcomes Ralph Fiennes to the cast. The actor teased his character (Dr. Kelson) as a survivor who is able to stay alive in a “very interesting” way.

“He’s quite out-there in his views on the world,” Fiennes revealed in an interview with Empire. However, the bald, bloodied survivor has an appearance or personality traits that might easily deceive you. “I think audiences will assume something about him and then see where it goes,” teased Fiennes.

So far, all we know about this intriguing character is that he curiously appears near giant skull structures. Kelson will indeed make an appearance in the first film in the 28 Years Later trilogy, but Fiennes whets our appetite for more survival drama down the line, revealing that he will play “a much bigger part of the next one.”

Boyle also shares some exciting insights into the future of the doctor: “He strides forward into the second film in an enormous way, where the question of what he’s after and what he wants to do gets fully resolved.”

Other confirmed cast members include Alfie Williams, Isla’s 12-year-old son Spike, Jack O’Connell as Sir Jimmy Crystal, Erin Kellyman as Jimmy Ink, and Edvin Ryding as E. Sundqvist.

The storyline and how the characters will exactly interact may still be shrouded in mystery, but Boyle rarely disappoints when it comes to making legendary Hollywood blockbusters — we will confirm this once the finished product arrives in theaters.

As excitement is building about 28 Years Later, fans are already digging for the slightest info about the return of Cillian Murphy. Are we finally having more of the Oppenheimer Oscar winner after his absence in the 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later? Some fans speculate that the Hollywood heavyweight will be back in the 2025 sequel, but this time, in the form of a rotting zombie.

Unfortunately, producer Andrew Macdonald has confirmed to Empire that the actor won't be appearing in the new film, although Macdonald hopes that “there will be some Jim somewhere along the line.”

Instead of returning as the bicycle courier who dies on the operating table in 28 Days Later’s alternate ending, Murphy currently serves as the executive producer. For now, our only hope is that Macdonald wishes for another Jim return “in some way in the future in the trilogy.”

The fleeting appearance of Murphy elicited a range of humorous responses on social media, A Reddit user shared, “I'd get quite offended if I was Cillian Murphy and saw all of you thinking he is that anorexic infected,” while another tried to justify the mix-up, “Tbf, he has pretty recognisable facial features which seems to be on the zombie too. Prominent cheekbone, gaunt cheeks, and full lips.”

 

The teaser trailer did a phenomenal job of teasing without giving everything away. It starts with a recap of the origins of the rage virus and shows fleeting scenes of horrifying events that took place more than 10,000 days later.

A group of survivors who refuse to give up amidst ruthless quarantine enforcement and zombie chaos begin creating a new community on a secluded island. One of the group decides to head to the mysterious mainland; little does he know that he is stepping into a world of dark secrets and pure horrors.

In an IndieWire October interview in 2024, Fiennes might have accidentally leaked some story details. In his words, (spoiler alert!) 28 Years Later “centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them, hiding in forests and hills and woods, are the infected...”

The third installment in the franchise introduces a new human antagonist: Sir Jimmy Crystal (played by Jack O’Connell), a cult leader with an extremely dark past. Speaking to Empire, Boyle confirmed the new zombie saga will be different from the original one: “It was a wholly different approach.”

Introducing human elements into the 28 franchise is such a thrilling and relatable twist. Unlike the previous films, where the infected were the primary threat, 28 Years Later shifts focus toward the dangers of human survival and power struggles in a post-apocalyptic world.

28 Years Later’s Holy Island is actually a real-life tidal island located along the northeast coast of England and served as a major historical hub of early English Christianity. The small island off the Northumberland’s Coast, once a place of worship, is now abundant in pubs and open for visiting (and obviously, shooting one of the best cinematic zombie works yet.)

Locals had the pleasure of witnessing the shooting of 28 Years Later last summer around Northumberland. “There was filming at Rothbury, Planky Mill, Holy Island, Bellingham, and Kielder,” one user shared on Reddit.

Boyle seems to have ambitious plans for the upcoming apocalypse sequel, as another user shared their firsthand experience: “I saw a big setup for filming at Whittingham Station on the A697, and a few days earlier, I was stopped from driving up the Ingram Valley by a security guard. Later, while walking up Hedgehope, I saw huge lorries and trailers driving down the valley. I thought they might have been filming at Linhope Spout."

While many shooting and production details remain under wraps, we know for sure that Anthony Dod Mantle will serve as cinematographer. A jaw-dropping detail is that the $75 million-budget Hollywood thriller was allegedly shot with a literal smartphone. According to several people connected with the film (per WIRED), Mantle reportedly filmed parts of 28 Years Later on an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

 

To date, this is the biggest film to be shot with “a bunch of adapted iPhone 15s.” It goes without saying that Mantle would have loved shooting with the latest iPhone 16 model, but it evidently hadn’t yet hit shelves at the time of production, which wrapped in summer 2024.

The smartphone aside, we are in for a glorious time watching Boyle’s sequel. It appears that the events are so terrifyingly real that the actors themselves felt scared to death on set. “The thing about our stunt performers playing the infected is they really don't take the speed off for you,” Comer shared with Empire. “They chase you. There were so many moments where I felt like I was actually running for my life!”

While the zombie chase was no fun for the 31-year-old star, it was a thrill for Boyle. “He just said, ‘I love this stuff,’” she recalls. “I asked, ‘Why?’ and he said, ‘Because you have to go there. You can’t fake it. You have to really commit for the audience to believe it.’”

The long-awaited trilogy is already taking shape, with much of it already filmed. It kicks off with Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later, followed by Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. As for the third installment? Boyle is set to return as director, but production will only move forward depending on how audiences respond to the first film.

“We tried to condense it, but its natural form felt like a trilogy,” Boyle explains. So brace yourself—three chapters of relentless Hollywood horror are on the horizon!

Released by Sony on December 10, 2024, the 28 Years Later trailer is officially the second most-watched horror teaser of all time, behind It Chapter Two. The traffic of the first 24 hours alone (60.2M global views) was so insane that Sony decided to release the original Boyle-directed 28  Days Later on digital December 18 for rental and purchase (per Deadline).

Whoever was responsible for creating this error-free trailer was an absolute genius. The 2-minute-long teaser, which one YouTube user admits is “one of the most terrifying trailers” they have ever seen, should be taught in film schools.

The calm before the storm, frightening former humans covered in blood, the intense human emotions that you can feel deeply in just mere seconds — it’s something you don’t see every day.

One of the most brilliant elements of the new 28 trailer is the incorporation of Rudyard Kipling’s “Boots,” a haunting poem first published in 1903. The English poet ingeniously captures the horrifying thoughts of a British Army infantryman during wartime, suggesting that mental torture might be a million times worse than Hellfire itself.

Naturally, the trailer has sparked a wide range of speculations and fan theories, which are expected to only grow wild with time. One theory suggests that people view children with pure, uninfected blood as some type of saviors in the zombie sequel (per TheGamer). Why? If you watch the trailer, you can spot a crowd of people lifting and celebrating what appears to be Spike as he smiles reluctantly.

No official information was released to confirm this theory, but it is plausible since the trailer includes brief yet horrifying scenes of zombies breaking into a church, leading us to think that religion will be a core theme throughout the trilogy.

We may have made it through a real-life pandemic — thanks in part to some truly unforgettable pandemic movies — but surviving the wait until 28 Years Later hits theaters this summer? That’s another challenge entirely.

At least we can be sure the terror will be worth it. Cillian Murphy, who has a behind-the-scenes role in the sequel, shared his excitement for the long-awaited zombie saga in an interview with Josh Horowitz, calling it simply “exciting.”

In the meantime, enjoy the chilling teaser below — though it’s anything but comforting.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcvLKldPM08[/embed]