Cillian Murphy will be a ‘very dominant element' in third 28 Years Later movie, Danny Boyle teases

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Cillian Murphy will be a 'very dominant element' in third 28 Years Later movie, Danny Boyle teases
While the 49-year-old actor won't be reprising his 28 Days Later protagonist Jim in the upcoming horror flick, Murphy will appear in its 2026 sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and now Boyle has revealed Jim will have a much bigger part to play in the third and final entry in the 28 Years Later trilogy
28 Years Later director Danny Boyle has teased Cillian Murphy will be a "very dominant element" in the third film.
While the 49-year-old actor won't be reprising his 28 Days Later protagonist Jim in the upcoming horror flick, Murphy will appear in its 2026 sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, and now Boyle has revealed Jim will have a much bigger part to play in the third and final entry in the 28 Years Later trilogy.
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Speaking with Collider, the 68-year-old director said: "There's a story arc across all three films. The principle of this is what we sold to Sony. And they immediately said, 'Don't say it's a trilogy. We said, 'No, we are going to say it's a trilogy.' Because it is! We're not going to lie to people!
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"Not all the characters run through all three films, but some of them do. There's a character in this one, played by Ralph Fiennes, who is a massive part of the second film.
"Cillian Murphy is an element in the second film and a very dominant element in the third film."
Boyle added he and scribe Alex Garland had written 28 Years Later to be a story that is "influenced" by 28 Days Later, though would not continue the plot elements introduced in the 2007 sequel 28 Weeks Later - which was directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo and saw the Rage Virus makes its way across the English Channel and begin to spread across Europe in the final scenes.
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Boyle explained: "What Alex and I decided to do was make an original film. But it's a story influenced by 28 Days Later.
"But it does not follow what happened in 28 Weeks Later, where the virus got into Europe. For story reasons, we suggested that Europe had driven the virus back across the channel. Then they could isolate the island of Britain and let it die out."
Boyle teased the 28 Years Later trilogy would have "ambitious storytelling", though suggested it would not be on the same scale as the Mission: Impossible series.
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He said: "It's ambitious storytelling! It's not ambitious like Mission: Impossible scale. But it's ambitious in terms of its intellectual ideas and its emotional reach through the genre. It's a wonderful genre because it's got that flex in it. If you've got enough horror in it ..."
28 Years Later - which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Jack O'Connell - follows a family of survivors navigating a decaying Britain as the Rage Virus persists, and is now more dangerous than ever.
As old and new allies collide, humanity's last hope may lie in confronting the horrors of the past.
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While Boyle and Garland have a clear plan for the 28 Years Later trilogy, the filmmaker revealed the scribe had initially penned a "more traditional sequel" to 28 Days Later.
He said: "Alex originally wrote a script that was more a traditional sequel. Like a 'weaponise the virus' type idea. You know, the military or the government, or a corporation weaponises the virus. Classic Alien-type idea, where you keep the thing going by doing that.
"We just didn't want to do that. There was something fresher we could tackle."