28 YEARS LATER: THE BONE TEMPLE Director on How 28 YEARS LATER Changes the Zombie Movie Formula
As the release of 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple inches closer, director Nia DaCosta is opening up about what sets the film and the larger 28 Days Later franchise apart from the usual zombie movie playbook.
While the genre often leans into bleak survival and moral decay, DaCosta says this chapter is wired differently, and that difference is exactly what pulled her in.
Speaking on Deadline’s Crew Call podcast, DaCosta explained that the heart of the franchise lies in ideas that most zombie stories don’t spend much time exploring. Instead of punishing humanity for its failures, The Bone Temple looks for something more emotionally grounded and, surprisingly, optimistic.
“I really feel like it’s the way that it tackles existential themes. Yeah, I really feel this depth of hope in them, because I think sometimes the zombie genre can be really hopeless, it can be sort of punishing, and it can kind of be shaking its finger at humans, whereas I feel like this is actually a really hopeful movie.”
That hopeful angle doesn’t mean the film pulls its punches. Violence and darkness are still very much part of the world, but DaCosta says the emotional core comes from how people connect when everything else has fallen apart.
That philosophy is embodied by one particular character who becomes central to the story’s perspective. DaCosta further continued:
“Some dark things happen, and there’s a lot of violence. I really think that the humanist vision that [Ralph Fiennes’] Kelson is positing is incredibly hopeful because it’s all about leaning into each other and holding onto each other, and that being beautiful. And so that is something, for me, that really drew me to it and that stuck out as different.”
The film, written by Alex Garland, was shot back-to-back with 28 Years Later, and it pushes the world forward in some unsettling ways. Spike, played by Alfie Williams, becomes entangled with a cult-like group led by the dangerous Sir Jimmy Crystal, portrayed by Jack O’Connell.
What starts as survival quickly spirals into something far more disturbing as Spike learns the cost of following a charismatic and unhinged leader. Meanwhile, Dr. Ian Kelson, played by Ralph Fiennes, uncovers a discovery that could permanently alter the fate of a world still ravaged by the Rage virus.
Instead of treating humanity as the problem to be erased, The Bone Temple frames human connection as the one thing still worth fighting for. That approach gives the film a tone that feels rare for the genre, especially for a story this brutal and intense.