Danny Boyle’s “28 Years Later” Casts Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Ralph Fiennes
When word spread that director Danny Boyle and writer/director Alex Garland were re-teaming 22 years after delivering their now iconic zombie thriller 28 Days Later for a sequel, excitement was high. That film, 28 Years Later, found a home at Sony, and now it’s found its three leads—Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Ralph Fiennes.
For the younger readers who still might not have caught that original film, it was a stunner, featuring a breakout by a then little-known Cillian Murphy in a ferocious zombie panic attack that re-energized the genre. Murphy starred as Jim, a young man who wakes up in a hospital in the U.K. to find out the country has been completely overrun by the undead. Boyle directed from a script by Garland, long before the latter was himself the director of such sci-fi stunners as Ex Machina and Annihilation. A sequel in 2007, from director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, 28 Weeks Later, featured Boyle and Garland as executive producers.
Comer’s star has been rising ever since her breakout performance in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s excellent series Killing Eve, and will next be seen in The Bikeriders, which revs into theaters on June 21. Taylor-Johnson plays a movie star gone rogue in The Fall Guy, which stars Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, and then will head up his own superhero franchise when Kraven the Hunter debuts in August. Fiennes, of course, has had a long and fruitful career, with recent turns in the deliciously demented The Menu and his longstanding role in the Daniel Craig-era James Bond films.
Sony won the rights for 28 Years Later after a bidding war with several other studios, and Garland is also working on a script for 28 Years Later: Part 2. Cillian Murphy, currently riding high after his Oscar win for his work in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, is on board as an executive producer. And Murphy might even act in the film, although those details are being kept in a top-secret biohazard facility.
Deadline first scooped the casting news.
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Featured image: L-r: NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 24: Jodie Comer attends the 2024 TIME Earth Awards Gala at Second on April 24, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for TIME). LONDON, ENGLAND – APRIL 22: Aaron Taylor-Johnson attends a special screening of “The Fall Guy” at BFI IMAX Waterloo on April 22, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images). TORONTO, ONTARIO – SEPTEMBER 10: Ralph Fiennes attends “The Menu” Premiere during the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival at Royal Alexandra Theatre on September 10, 2022 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Amy Sussman/Getty Images)
