28 years later: Mystery resolved! Is Cillian Murphy in the continuation of the cult film?

Twenty-two years after having reinvented the film of infected, Danny Boyle returns with 28 years later, the third opus of the cult saga, but also the first part of a new trilogy.

Scheduled in French theaters on June 18, 28 years later brings together Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, Alfie Williams and Ralph Fiennes. The story takes place almost thirty years after the rage virus ravaged Great Britain.

While an extremely strict containment was established, some have managed to survive among the contaminated. A community of survivors has thus taken refuge on a small island connected to the continent by a single road, placed under close surveillance. One of the inhabitants of the island is sent on a mission on the continent with his 12 -year -old son. They then discover that infected people have transferred.

The film explores the way in which society has reorganized and how survivors have adapted to subsist in a confined and always contaminated country.

Danny Boyle signs the staging of this new chapter, while the director Nia Dacosta will take over for 28 years Later: The Bone Temple, expected in theaters on January 14, 2026. The third opus, which Boyle should also make, will not start its shooting until the release of the first film, and only if it meets the expected success in theaters.

Cillian Murphy will not be in 28 years later

But what about the return of Cillian Murphy, an emblematic figure of the first film? Questioned by EmpireDanny Boyle revealed that Cillian Murphy would not be in the first feature film in the trilogy. For the record, producer Tom Rothman said in May 2024 that the Irish actor would be back from “a surprising way” in the future.

Leaving room for many speculations, especially when the trailer was launched in which a skeletal infected infected resembling the actor appeared.

Information quickly denied by the interpreter of the Famenic character, Angus Neill, an art dealer and model spotted by Danny Boyle.

Sony

Producer Andrew Macdonald was already specified in Empire Magazine Last January that the character of Jim, played by Murphy, would not be in the 2025 film.

“We wanted him to be involved and he wanted to be. He is not in the first film, but I hope that Jim will be there at one point or another. He is currently involved as an executive producer and I hope that we can work with him in one way or another in the trilogy.”

Why was Cillian Murphy announced?

This Tuesday, June 3, Danny Boyle returned to the microphone of Indiewire on the genesis of the film and explains the reason why the name of Cillian Murphy was announced when the actor is not in the first part:

“This third film, we have been talking about it for a long time, Alex Garland and I, because it was obvious that the saga had kept its popularity. Not only the original film, but everything that followed. We often joked that we should have received a percentage on The Walking Dead or The Last of Us.

Sony

And then Alex wrote a scenario version where the virus was militarized. Any script of Alex is good, but we felt that we were not thrilled. We said: “Yes, that's good.” But that was everything. There was not this thrill. So we dropped. And then Alex returned with a much more ambitious idea: to withdraw from Europe and isolate the island. This new idea has spread over three films, two of which are already shot, and all the characters end up being linked – that's how Cillian Murphy enters the scene.

We were unscrupulous

He is an executive producer on this first film, and of course, we were unscrupulous – and he rightly approved – to use his name to obtain funding, saying: “You take this project with his name, and you will end up finding Cillian, and it will be his film. And immediately, as soon as we started to consider it like that, the project gained inventiveness. He focused on the characters, because the whole structure was based on them. “

The director adds: “Ralph Fiennes plays an important role in this film, and becomes a central character in the second. And Jack O'Connell, which we see everything at the end of the first, also takes a huge place in the second. As for Alfie Williams, he crosses the two films. “

28 years later was released in our dirty on June 18.