28 Years Later Trailer – Military Themes and Zombie Shocks

After years of AI fakes flooding YouTube, we finally have a real trailer for the long-awaited 28 Years Later movie that will be released in 2025. And it has got people talking. Well, that is what a trailer is for…

Danny Boyle and Alex Garland have reunited to bring us 28 Years Later, a “terrifying new story set in the world created by 28 Days Later.” 

28 Years Later movie: what we know so far

Set 28 years since the rage virus escaped a laboratory and in a world where societies find ways to exist in spite of the hordes of infected. This story follows a group of survivors on an island that is connected to the mainland by a heavily-defended causeway. One of the group leaves the island and, according to the blurb, “he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.”

The trailer is harrowing, not giving key plot points away but providing a bleak outlook on a dystopian world, and alluding to the virus and the fact that “time didn’t heal anything”. 

We hear a recording of Rudyard Kipling’s war poem Boots instead of music in the trailer. The poem was published in Kipling’s The Five Nations collection and is from the perspective of a British Army infantryman marching in South Africa during the Second Boer War. Supposedly, that poem is written to be read in a way that has an exact rhythm, echoing the foot soldiers and how they marched. This is underpinned in the trailer by an ominous beeping sound as it builds to a creepy conclusion. 

Will we see Cillian Murphy?

Breaking the internet, to coin a phrase, has been the still from the trailer that people have speculated show the star of the original movie, Cillian Murphy, in an infected state. If it is him, his character, Jim, has become gaunt and gnarled by the infectious disease. All of this leaves fans with some questions unanswered regarding what has happened in nearly three decades of this disease.

We also see graffiti on a farm, which reads: “Behold he is coming with the clouds” – a verse from chapter one of the Bible’s book of Revelation. But the word “Jimmy” is also scrawled next to it, leaving fans to speculate on whether this is another reference to Murphy’s main character.

Like any zombie film trailer, there is a fair amount of chasing and fighting off infected! We see the main actors all in action, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Jodie Comer both feature in the trailer along with Ralph Fiennes. 

Frustratingly, fans who want to watch the first movie (28 Days Later) again may find it tough to come across. Due to a dispute over rights, the movie is not currently on any of the major streaming platforms.

28 Years Later is scheduled to be released in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada by Sony Pictures on 20 June 2025.