Director Danny Boyle has confirmed that Cillian Murphy will have a major role in the final chapter of the upcoming 28 Years Later trilogy.
Though the Irish actor, best known for playing Jim in 28 Days Later, won’t reprise that role in the 2026 sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, fans can expect to see him return in a bigger way for the third and final installment.
Boyle, now 68, revealed the news in a recent interview with Collider, where he emphasized that the trilogy has a carefully planned story arc. “Cillian Murphy is an element in the second film and a very dominant element in the third film,” Boyle shared.
While 28 Weeks Later took the story in a different direction back in 2007, Boyle and writer Alex Garland chose to build their new trilogy independently from that sequel. Boyle explained, “What Alex and I decided to do was make an original film. But it’s a story influenced by 28 Days Later. It does not follow what happened in 28 Weeks Later, where the virus got into Europe.”
Instead, the new storyline imagines that Europe managed to push the virus back to Britain, essentially isolating the UK to let the virus die out. That setup forms the foundation of 28 Years Later, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, and Jack O’Connell as a family of survivors navigating a Britain still plagued by the Rage Virus.
Boyle also teased some crossover between characters throughout the trilogy. While not all original characters return, some play major roles. “There’s a character in this one, played by Ralph Fiennes, who is a massive part of the second film,” he said.
Interestingly, Garland had originally written a more typical sequel script, involving the weaponization of the virus by military or corporate forces-a common sci-fi trope. But the duo scrapped that idea in favor of something more grounded and emotionally rich. “There was something fresher we could tackle,” Boyle added.
The director says the trilogy won’t be blockbuster-level like Mission: Impossible, but will still be ambitious in its own way. “It’s ambitious storytelling,” he said. “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.”
While details about the final film remain under wraps, Boyle’s comments make it clear that Murphy’s presence will be central to how the story wraps up. With strong emotional threads, grounded horror, and returning characters, the 28 Years Later trilogy is shaping up to be a high-stakes, thought-provoking continuation of the beloved original.
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