28 Days Later is generally regarded as one of the better movies of the zombie genre, and it certainly helped revive the concept on the big screen when it was released in 2002. The movie’s success spawned a sequel a few years later. Since most successful franchises spawn trilogies, fans have wanted to see a third movie for nearly two decades. Now that 28 Years Later is happening, Cillian Murphy, the star of the first film, is ready to return. In fact, he was ready before the movie was ever confirmed.
Murphy spoke back in December at the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Conversations series (via Variety) where he talked about 28 Days Later, including the fact that he wasn’t particularly well-versed in the zombie movie genre when he made the film and didn’t see it as a zombie movie anyway. When asked about the then-often-asked-for a third film and if he’d be interested in being in it, Murphy said simply…
I’m available.
Murphy said he was available for the sequel without any information (that we know of) that the new movie was happening, so he may have just been excited about the idea of the movie. Since this interview, of course, we’ve learned that 28 Years Later with Danny Boyle and Alex Garland is happening, and that Cillian Murphy is on board as a producer. At this point, what we know about 28 Years Later is minimal, so it hasn’t been confirmed if he’ll also be in front of the camera, but that’s certainly on the table.
The two previous films in the franchise featured entirely different casts and were simply set at different points in the timeline. The third film will, as the title suggests, be set nearly three decades after the first movie, showing us how the world has evolved and, one hopes, recovered from the outbreak. No cast for the new film has been revealed, so it could also feature entirely new characters.
Of course, in the initial announcement, it was confirmed that Boyle and Garland have a trilogy of sequels they’re looking to make. If that happens, we could certainly see Cillian Murphy, as well as others from the previous films, appear in some of the movies, but not others. It’s unclear if the prospective trilogy is a single story or simply three movies set in the same universe.
Clearly Cillian Murphy is “available,” and since he’s a producer, the writer and director will know where to find him. It seems all but certain that unless there’s a specific reason that the story being told shouldn’t include Murphy’s character, he’ll likely appear. But until we know for sure, this will remain one of many questions we have about 28 Years Later.