The final chapter of Danny Boyle’s zombie trilogy still has no money behind it. The director has said this week that he and his partners would need to raise the funds themselves to make the third 28 Years Later film, according to an interview report that spread quickly among film fans on Saturday. The project, the fifth film in the series that began with 28 Days Later in 2002, is officially listed as on hold.
The numbers explain the stall. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the January 2026 middle chapter directed by Nia DaCosta, grossed $58.5 million worldwide against a $63 million budget. Sony spent a further $70 million on marketing.
A trilogy that split in two at the box office
The two new films were shot back to back in 2024, but audiences did not show up for them equally. Here is how the run compares:
- 28 Days Later (2002): $82.8 million worldwide on an $8 million budget
- 28 Weeks Later (2007): $72.3 million on $15 million
- 28 Years Later (2025): $151.3 million on $60 million
- The Bone Temple (2026): $58.5 million on $63 million
Put another way, Boyle’s 2025 film earned about 2.5 times its budget in theaters, while The Bone Temple took in roughly 93 cents for every production dollar before marketing was counted. Its opening weekend in the US was $13 million over three days, under half the $30 million its predecessor opened to.
The irony is that The Bone Temple is the best-reviewed entry in the series. It drew a 91% positive score from 348 critics on Rotten Tomatoes and an A-minus CinemaScore, up from the B that 28 Years Later received. Ralph Fiennes won a Critics’ Choice Super Award for playing Dr. Ian Kelson.
What Boyle has said along the way
Money has hung over the third film from the start. In June 2025, Boyle described the plan this way: “It’s outlined […] The overall arc is outlined, but we’ve got to raise the money first. And that will depend on how the first film performs.”
By May 2026 he was pointing to the calendar instead. “We ran out of time. Because it’s set in an area of Britain you can only film at certain times of the year,” he said, adding that it would be “hopefully, fingers crossed, next year.” In October he called the film “on the back burner,” citing funding and Alex Garland’s schedule.
Sony had moved to greenlight the third chapter in December 2025, with Garland writing and Cillian Murphy in talks to return as Jim. Murphy, an executive producer on the new films, already made a surprise appearance at the end of The Bone Temple alongside Maiya Eastmond as his daughter, Sam, a scene designed to set up the finale.
What Boyle is doing instead
The director has another film arriving first. His newspaper drama Ink, starring Jack O’Connell and Guy Pearce, opens December 11; our earlier story covers the Ink trailer and its 1969 tabloid setting. O’Connell also played the cult leader Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal in The Bone Temple.
The series has a long history of stalls. A third 28 film was first mooted in 2007, slipped into development trouble by 2010, and took until January 2024 to be formally announced. Fans of the 2007 sequel may also want our piece on Rose Byrne’s new Peacock thriller The Good Daughter; Byrne played Major Scarlet Levy in 28 Weeks Later.
For now the franchise record lists the fifth film with no release date, no cinematographer and no composer, and the director attached is still Danny Boyle.
Further reading
Image: Montclair Film, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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