When the first trailer for Danny Boyle’s long-awaited 28 Years Later debuted last December, there was an “infected” person who looked just enough like Cillian Murphy to have us wondering about his character’s fate from the first movie in the series, 28 Days Later. That theory was debunked quickly, but Boyle and producer Andrew Macdonald have both confirmed that while the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer star won’t appear in 28 Years Later, he will show up in the upcoming sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which could then feed into a third, unconfirmed film to wrap up the trilogy.
Not only is Murphy an executive producer on the first 28 Years Later, Boyle has now told IGN that Murphy’s appearance in The Bone Temple is meant to set up the third movie.
“There’s a coda… it’s not a coda, it’s the epilogue or an end theme at the end of the first film [28 Years Later] that gives you a handover to the second film,” the director said. “Although each story completes itself, there’s a handover section to the next film as well. So it’s very ambitious. We haven’t got the money for the third one yet. It will depend how the first one does, I guess. But hopefully if we do ok, they’ll give us the go-ahead for the money and for the third one. Everybody’s standing by for that, really. Including Cillian.”
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Given the way Murphy has broken out in recent years, one hopes that the money wouldn’t be too big an obstacle. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple premieres in January 2026, and Murphy will also soon be seen in a new Peaky Blinders movie for Netflix.