Movies
’28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’ Will Release in 28 Weeks; Here’s Everything We Know
How Hollywood typically works is that sequels aren’t ordered until movies prove themselves to be box office hits, but the story with 28 Years Later is a bit different. The long-awaited sequel to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later was conceived as a trilogy from the outset, with both Danny Boyle’s 28 Years Later and its own sequel uniquely filmed back-to-back.
Yes, that means 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple has already wrapped production with director Nia DaCosta (Candyman) at the helm, and Sony has already given the film a release date. The Bone Temple will release 28 weeks from now on January 16, 2026.
Whether or not we get the third film in the planned trilogy, well, that’s seemingly dependent on the box office performance of these first two movies. But that’s a story for another day…
A LITERAL BONE TEMPLE
Today we’d like to focus on 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the title of which makes a lot more sense now that we’ve seen 28 Years Later. The titular bone temple is of course a primary location in Danny Boyle’s trilogy-starter, the construction of a mysterious man by the name of Dr. Kelson. Played by Oscar nominee Ralph Fiennes, Kelson turns out to be a kind-hearted man who has taken up a unique hobby in the years since the world went to infected shit.
Dr. Kelson has taken it upon himself to construct a literal bone temple, made primarily of the skulls of the many dead bodies he’s come across in his travels. It’s Kelson’s tribute to the lives lost by the infection that’s ravaged the world the past 28 years, and a bold personification of the Latin phrase that serves as his north star: Memento mori, “remember you must die.”
The title of DaCosta’s sequel suggests we’ll be returning to that location, and it also suggests that Ralph Fiennes will be back in next year’s sequel. And that seems to be the case.
A SEQUEL TEASE FROM RALPH FIENNES
Fiennes tells Entertainment Weekly, “I can say that the themes that we touched on in the scene on the train, the moment of labor, the humanity — it is a critical moment in the life of a mother and child. The ultimate human moment is an infected woman who is giving birth to a baby who is not infected. The theme of innate humanity — is it still alive in the soul, in the heart, in the mind of an infected person? Are they completely corrupted? Are they only rabid? Or is there the possibility of something? Something human, it’s still there.”
Ralph Fiennes also notes in the same interview with EW, “We carry in us the potential for terrible destruction and pain. That theme is picked up very strongly in the next film.”
THE JIMMY & ALFIE OF IT ALL
The final minutes of 28 Years Later also suggest that The Bone Temple will heavily focus on Jack O’Connell’s “Sir Jimmy Crystal” and his merry band of evil-doers, with the film being book-ended by Jimmy’s apocalypse origin story and later a quick – and tonally bonkers – status update on the man he’s become in the years since. Jimmy and his fellow Jimmys save our young hero Spike (Alfie Williams) from a horde of infected, strongly suggesting that A) Alfie is now in a whole heap of trouble and B) the tone of The Bone Temple may be a bit different.
Danny Boyle tells IGN that Jimmy is a “hugely significant figure” in Nia DaCosta’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple. He previews, “It’s the epilogue or an end theme at the end of the first film that gives you a handover to the second film.” The character and his gang seem to be inspired by real life figure Jimmy Savile, which may offer clues to what’s coming next.
O’Connell recently told GQ, “He is a gas cunt. I don’t know quite how to describe him yet. He definitely exists in the darker pocket, certainly in contrast to anything I’ve ever played before.”
As for young Spike, his journey will be documented throughout the next two movies, with Alfie Williams reprising the role in both The Bone Temple and that film’s planned sequel.
A CERTAIN BICYCLE COURIER
The other main thing we know about 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple at this time is that Cillian Murphy’s character Jim from 28 Days Later is expected to make an appearance.
“[DaCosta] gets a bit of Cillian at the end,” Boyle recently told Business Insider. “All I can say is you have to wait for Cillian, but hopefully he will help us get the third film financed.”
Cillian Murphy played protagonist Jim in 28 Days Later back in 2002, a bicycle courier who ends up being one of the few survivors of the apocalyptic events of the hit infection movie.
Boyle’s aforementioned comments on the actor’s appearance in The Bone Temple suggest that Jim will play a much bigger role in the third installment if it ends up being greenlit.
Like 28 Years Later, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple was written by original 28 Days scribe Alex Garland, and we expect to learn more very soon. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping our eyes locked on the film’s box office performance for clues about the trilogy’s future. At this time, 28 Years Later has scared up $60 million worldwide, so it’s off to a pretty strong start.
Stay tuned for more on all things 28 Years Later as we learn it.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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