28 Months Later? Here's What Alex Garland Says

28 Days Later infected

In 2002, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland turned the zombie genre on its head with 28 Days Later, a film that took the concept of a post-apocalyptic viral outbreak and turned the adrenaline up with the deadly Rage Virus. The franchise continued in 2007 with Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 28 Weeks Later, and that film left many wondering if and when a third installment would finally debut. There's quite a bit of enthusiasm for the series to become a trilogy (at least), but Garland recently took part in a Reddit AMA session and admitted that it probably won't happen. When asked by fans if there's a plan for another movie, Garland wrote:

Kind of, but doubt it will ever happen.

So if you are one of the many fans who has looked forward to the possibility of a third installment in the 28 Days Later franchise, then it sounds like you might not want to get your hopes up about it. Alex Garland knows of a tentative plan to do a third movie in this world (which many fans assumed might be called 28 Months Later), but now he's doubtful that it's going to happen. Like the insanely-strong infected at the end of the first movie, enough time passed, and it eventually wasted away.

The interesting thing to note about Alex Garland's response during that Reddit AMA session is the fact that there was "kind of" a plan in place to continue the franchise beyond the events of 28 Weeks Later. It wasn't just a theory, or a hypothetical story dreamed up by fans; it was real at one point. As fans will likely recall, the film ended with the Rage Virus making its way across the English Channel and into France, naturally setting up another movie in a new environment.

With that cliffhanger (we still don't know what happened to any of the surviving characters in 28 Weeks Later) tease in mind, there's room to continue expanding and try new things with this world. Alas, based on Alex Garland's assessment of the franchise, it seems more likely that imagery of the infected racing towards the Eiffel Tower provided the final punctuation for the series. Pretty bleak, right?

Despite the fact that it sounds like we probably won't get another entry in the 28 Days Later series, there's still plenty to be excited about within Alex Garland's filmography. On the heels of his recent directorial debut with Ex Machina (which went on to become a critical darling in its own right), the writer-director will soon debut his latest film, Annihilation, on February 23. Annihilation has already received strong critical buzz, so even without another installment in the pseudo zombie franchise, there's enough material here to keep genre fans intrigued for the foreseeable future.

CinemaBlend will keep you posted with more updates related to the future of the 28 Days Later world as new details are made available to us. For now, check out our 2018 movie premiere guide to see what movies (horror genre or otherwise) are set to debut this year!

Conner Schwerdtfeger

Originally from Connecticut, Conner grew up in San Diego and graduated from Chapman University in 2014. He now lives in Los Angeles working in and around the entertainment industry and can mostly be found binging horror movies and chugging coffee.