A sequel to the Danny Boyle-directed 28 Days Later and Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s 28 Weeks Later is long overdue. Now, I’ve always had a theory – that I’ve stated here multiple times at Shock – about sequels. After a certain amount of time passes between installments, it just seems silly to move forward with another chapter because the results would be disastrous creatively or financially. Since subscribing to that notion, I’ve been proven right with some movies and wrong with others.
Upon a recent revisit to 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later (the latter of which doesn’t hold up as well as I remember, but is a perfectly good sequel for various reasons), I really got the craving for another installment.
A good part of the reason why: 28 Weeks Later’s damn open ending. That film could have been about rebuilding and another collapse and the hope of rebuilding again. But no, they had to end on a pessimistic note and spread the damn, pesky rage virus to France. I wanted to know what happened next. Is the world totally fucked in a World War Z-like scenario where containment is utterly beyond control? How does Europe respond? Moreover, how does America respond, having played such an integral part in getting England back on its feet?
Those sort of questions began rampaging through my head and I started sifting through old 28 Months Later news rumors to see where the news cycle had ended. The reasons for the hold-up were consistent: An idea for a sequel had not been hatched and Danny Boyle was far too busy to get involved. He stated in 2010 that he would like to direct a third entry, if the idea was good but other commitments kept him from focusing on a threequel.
Now, a common argument leveled against a new film is sound – where else is there left to go? The zombie genre is reaching critical exhaustion (don’t get me started on whether 28 Days Later qualifies as a zombie film or not – separate discussion) and The Walking Dead, World War Z and pop culture in general are seeing to it that this sub-genre burns out (before an eventual resurrection, of course). 28 Days Later, to me, always served as the next level of the zombie genre. Robert Patrick’s T-1000 to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800. Evolved. Speaking to our time. Naturally, in the wake of 28 Days Later we saw films that attempted to recapture the George Romero glory days, but in my opinion, 28 Days Later injected much needed life into a sub-genre I held very dear.
Not only that, but it was topical, sometimes echoing emotional images we saw come out of 9/11. 28 Weeks Later followed suit. Instead of 9/11, however, the rebuilding we saw in the wake of Hurricane Katrina had an influence. The bottom line: Real tragedies informed these films to a degree, making them relevant and impactful. A lot more so than the usual zombie fare we get.
With that in mind, I thought about what 28 Months Later could draw from and I kept going back to the Fukushima disaster and how, a few years later, it is something we’re still reading about and monitoring via various news outlets, social media channels and blogs. I know here on the West Coast, there’s not a gathering of friends that goes by without someone warning me not to eat the sushi because they’ve read about radiation poisoning the Pacific Ocean.
There’s a creeping dread, from something that happened nearly three years ago, that’s fascinating and ripe to be explored there. What if 28 Months Later was set in America? It could explore how we are monitoring this tragedy (the renewed spread of the rage virus) overseas while countries attempt to contain it. Look at how we think, “Oh, this could not reach us, they’ve got it handled” until fears begin to creep in. Uh-oh. Maybe we were wrong. It could look at how we handle those fears and brace ourselves for the worst until, ultimately, the rage virus does find its way onto our soil. And, of course, you evolve the rules and science of the rage virus so we learn a bit more and keep the series fresh.
That is just my two cents and by no means intentional fan wank or “they should do this take!” This is simply my attempt to say this is a strong series and 28 Months Later should not be written off, nor should it be abandoned. I think there’s potential if the involved parties wanted to take a crack at it.
