Why is it 28 Years Later and not 28 Months Later?

28 Days Later, Weeks… and now 28 Years Later is in development. But what happened to 28 Months Later?

In 2002, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland re-energized the zombie genre with 28 Days Later. Instead of Romero’s brain-munching undead, this film’s virus specifically targeted the living, stripping them of their civility and leaving them in a state of constant red-eyed rage.

The first movie remains a masterpiece; a monstrous, yet hopeful allegory for the depths of (in)humanity. Its sequel, 28 Weeks Later, lost the prestige of the writer-director duo but it has perhaps the most blood-chilling, pulse-racing opening sequence of any movie in the 21st century.

A new movie was floated as a possibility in 2007. 15 years on, 28 Years Later has finally been announced. However, without the title people expected or Cillian Murphy to star in it.

Why is it 28 Years Later instead of 28 Months Later?

While there hasn’t been an official explanation, considering it’s been so long since the first two films, 28 Years Later is a more appropriate continuation.

Searchlight Pictures

That’s not to say it wasn’t originally meant to be Months Later. Shortly after the physical media release of 28 Weeks Later, reports emerged noting that DVD sales would need to be considerable for a third movie to be green-lit.

While promoting Sunshine, Boyle said the story for the next installment had already been mapped out, but in the years to come there were difficulties regarding the rights to the series, as well as other development hurdles.

In 2015, Garland told IGN, “Danny [Boyle] and [producer] Andrew [Macdonald] and I have been having quite serious conversations about it so it is a possibility.”

He said, “It’s more likely to be 28 Months than 28 Years. 28 Years gives you one more place to go. 28 Decades is probably taking the piss.”

In 2023, as part of an oral history for the first movie, Garland told Inverse he’d “resisted” writing a third entry “because there were things about 28 Weeks that bugged me. I just thought, ‘F**k that. I’d rather try to write a different story in a different world.”

“But a few years ago an idea materialized in my head for what would be really 28 Years Later. Danny always liked the idea,” he added.

28 Years Later has since been announced, and it’s intended to launch a new trilogy, but we’re not expecting Parts 2 and 3 to be called 28 Decades Later and Centuries Later.

We’ve also written a Civil War review if you’re interested in one of the best movies from 2024. We’ve also broken down the Civil War soundtrack and if Alex Garland is quitting filmmaking.