Fans of the ’28 Days Later’ series have been eagerly awaiting news that ’28 Months Later’ is still happening and Alex Garland (‘Dredd‘,’Ex Machina‘) has just given an update on the project. While the movie itself is moving forward, it looks as if his contribution to it is over, so while we should be hearing more about it in the near future. any new updates probably won’t be coming from Garland himself. It is actually a little surprising that he is involved as he doesn’t seem to be super interested in working on sequels.
That point of view came up when he was talking about a follow up to ‘Ex Machina’ which he also has no immediate plans to do:
“Sequels are generally done in a rush. It’s done with a sense of urgency. The first movie, you spend a long time developing to get it over the line. The second thing, you don’t. Your expectations are different and your motivations are different.”
I can see that point of view of not wanting to ruin a good thing by rushing through a second film in a series. Thankfully with the time spend between ’28 Days Later’, ’28 Weeks Later’, and now ’28 Months Later’ there has been plenty of time to put some ideas out there.
He wasn’t overly involved with creating the story for ’28 Weeks Later’ as he and director Danny Boyle were only Executive Producers on the film. However, after eight years with no sequel there was a very clear reason on why another film wasn’t made:
“The rights to ‘28 Days’ were frozen, effectively, because they were shared between Danny [Boyle], [producer] Andrew [McDonald], myself, and Fox. After the second one, none of us really wanted to do another. Fox may or may not have, I don’t know.”
I’m sure Fox was more than interested. However,for the rest of those who owned the rights, what kicked things into gear for a third ’28 Days’ movie actually happened from an idea that popped up while Boyle was working on a potential sequel to ‘Trainspotting.’ Garland shared his idea with McDonald and said while he didn’t want to do much more than generate the initial concept, it seems that McDonald has taken the idea and ran with it!
“I had a funny idea. I had a sort of weird idea that popped into my head. Partly because of a trip I’d taken. I had this thought, and I suggested it to Andrew and Danny, but I also said I don’t want to work on it. I don’t really want to play a role, and Andrew said, ‘Leave it to me.’ So he’s gone off and is working on it.”
So it seems that whatever idea he had a couple years back has taken root and grown into a full fledged script. There isn’t any exact details that he has shared with us or how much of an idea he had that prompted the film but fans of these zombie-like infected should be getting at least one more installment of this potentially world ending virus to view on the big screen.
Personally, I can’t wait as it seems that they are going with quality over quantity and that is exactly what I have enjoyed about this series. Especially the first film.
What are your thoughts on ’28 Months Later’ moving forward? Are you happy to hear that there has been some progress with the film? Share your thoughts below!
Source: Blastr
