Why It Was Almost Impossible To Launch A 28 Days Later Franchise

The introduction of rage-infected antagonists in 2002's 28 Days Later turned the horror world

on its head. From its gritty handheld aesthetic to its horrifying updating of the tired tropes

of the undead, the film's influence cannot be overstated. 28 Days Later is now looked back upon

as a classic, which under present-day circumstances would have spawned a lengthy franchise. And yet

The tangled web of behind-the-scenes drama and creative infighting caused this opportunity to be squandered

28 Days Later centers on a young man, Jim, played by Cillian Murphy

who wakes up in a hospital after being in a coma for 28 days

and quickly discovers the world has been taken over by rage-infected maniacs

This harrowing high concept was written by novelist Alex Garland and directed by Danny Boyle of Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire fame

The pair had bonded during the production of the filmic adaptation of Garland's book

The Beach, which starred Leonardo DiCaprio. 28 days later marked a sharp departure from their previous effort

It was originally planned by the two creative masterminds as a reinvigoration of the long-dead zombie genre

Garland got the idea from playing the Resident Evil games and being severely disappointed by the eventual Paul W.S. Anderson film

Conceived as a back-to-basics remodeling of the 60s fear-of-mob mentality that Romero had exploited in The Night of the Living Dead

28 Days Later aspired to make those emotions sharper, leaner, and meaner

And it worked. The film was a massive success, pulling in over $84 million off a budget of roughly $8 million

Traditionally, this financial windfall would have normally guaranteed sequels. The production almost didn't even get that chance

Much like Romero's Night of the Living Dead, the original ending of 28 Days Later was planned to be much bleaker

While the theatrical ending does climax with a sugary sweet finale that showcases Cillian Murphy Jim surviving and signaling to British fighter jets that they are in fact alive on the ground it almost had opted for quite a different finale In fact the DVD release of the film showcased three alternate endings

most of which would have concluded with Jim dying. One where Jim dies of his gunshot wounds

one where Jim dreams of the accident that put him in the hospital bed to begin with while he dies

and one that only made it to the storyboard phase that would have seen Jim saving Frank with a blood transfusion

Ultimately, it was decided that the film was so oppressive that they had to have an uplifting ending

to ensure commercial appeal of the project. It's been rumored since that not everyone involved

loved this decision, but it seems fairly obvious that this idea helped the film immeasurably

The back and forth acrimony behind the scenes surrounding the ending continued after curtains drew to a close, however

Andrew McDonald, the producer of the first film, attempted to rally Garland and Boyle to take on a sequel

but the film took a considerable amount of time to finally get the script and story into place

where everyone was happy. By March of 2005, they were finally ready to roll cameras, but Boyle was unavailable to direct due to previous commitments to another Garland Pins script, Sunshine

Director Juan Carlos Fresnodio was brought on to direct the film, and while some early conversations apparently did include the prospect of bringing back Murphy's Jim character and seeing a subsequent adventure from him

28 weeks later opted to tell a completely new and different story using a brand new cast of characters

However, Fresnadillo was not happy with the script that he was given and redeveloped the script from the ground up

This was probably a prudent move because while the film itself seems to have a diminished legacy

the opening of 28 Weeks Later is still remembered as a classic. It features Robert Carlyle's Don betraying his family and fleeing from the infected as they devour his loved ones

And this opening has the terrifying in-your-face desolate tone that made the previous film a smash success

Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn't quite live up to the promise of this opening

Despite taking five years to make it into Cineplexes, 28 Weeks Later also did very well

at the box office pulling in million off a budget of million Under normal circumstances they would have rushed into a third film right This is the late odds The MCU is about to come

together. Every studio wanted their flagship franchise, and with two successful genre-defining

hits under their belt, could the 28 Days Later sequels have become a horror juggernaut for Fox

We'll never truly know because it took until 2025 to finally see a proper sequel produced

Well, there were plans to produce a sequel directly after the release of 28 Weeks Later

In June of 2007, a third film was greenlit by Fox, depending on how the home video release performed

By July, just one month later, Alex Garland said that there was an approved story

and they were moving ahead. However, just a few months later, Danny Boyle told MTV

I'm not particularly keen on franchises. I find it really depressing that they're so successful

It used to be when I started that a sequel would only make 60% of what the original movie did

Now, of course, the sequels are much more successful than the originals. I'm more interested in doing originals

By October of 2010, no sequel had yet materialized. When asked about the possibility in an interview with Worst Previews

Alex Garland said, I'll answer this completely honestly. When we made 28 Days Later

the rights were frozen between a group of people who are no longer talking to each other

And so the film is never going to happen unless those people start talking to each other again

There is no script as far as I'm aware. This statement is obviously aimed at Boyle and producer

Andrew McDonald, and what exactly went down behind closed doors isn't public knowledge

but it's very apparent that they were all on bad terms for a long period of time

To make things even worse, the film's legacy was being held hostage. The film wasn't allowed on

streaming due to these rights issues. For many years, the only way to watch this early 2000s

classic was to purchase an out-of-print physical disc. Obviously, this caused quite an uproar with

horror fans. What would happen next would be a development hell for the ages. Every few years

someone would ask this grumpy threesome about what the status of a sequel was and they would invariably answer one of two ways Nothing as far as I aware or we talking about it but we see what happens After about a decade of spinning their wheels it would seem cooler heads have finally prevailed Sony won an auction for the rights and can now release the

original film on streaming, and has produced a sequel titled 28 years later. The film is in the

first part of a proposed trilogy, with Garland writing, Boyle back directing the first installment

and McDonald return to producing. Will we see Cillian Murphy's Jim appear in one of these new

purported three sequels? We'll have to wait and see. But what is sure, though, is that Garland

and Boyle have a hell of a task cut out for them. In 2002, when the original film was released

zombies weren't a cultural staple the way they are now. The Walking Dead alone boasts over 10

spinoff shows. It's a massive phenomenon that has completely changed the landscape of mainstream

cinematic tastes, let alone horror inclinations. Currently, the trend in horror that gets released

in theaters is what's termed elevated horror, a self-serious, somewhat artistically inclined film

that is some of the trappings of a specific subgenre or two, but presents it in a way that has some sort of overt political message

Think Get Out or The Witch or The Babadum. These are films that present genre trappings in a way that's applicable to a wide variety of people

because it's perceived culturally as serious and not lowbrow. A trilogy of rage-infected films

How are they going to make that relevant today? How are they going to reinvent the wheel

It doesn't really appear like they are. The trailers position the film, like many other entries in the subgenre

as a bleak, no-holds-barred post-apocalyptic story. Garland and Boyle have each had numerous successes

since the release of 28 Days Later. One would hope that the only real reason

to return to a franchise after this long was because they really had a story that's worth telling

However, it really doesn't feel like it. It feels like the pressures of building a franchise for Sony

and whatever dump truck of money was backed up onto their lawns or the original creators has won out

Perhaps it's a good thing they're not second-guessing themselves and trying to do a high-concept subversion of expectations

But it does beg the question, Are we barreling toward another falling out between Garland, Boyle, and McDonald

Only time will tell