Cillian Murphy will be in one, possibly two, "28 Years Later" movies

When Murphy wasn't seen in the trailer for "28 Years Later," many thought that perhaps his character Jim was no longer living. Hey, 28 years is a long time to live in a zombie-laden apocalyptic landscape. Boyle, though, has said that the franchise is not done, and he in fact says two further films are planned. In fact, one of them has already been shot.

"28 Years Later: The Bone Temple," was not directed by Boyle, though it does have a screenplay from Alex Garland. Instead, Nia DaCosta handled the directing. She could use a W, as her two commercial swings after her breakthrough debut movie "Little Woods" have landed with a thud. "Candyman" was kind of a shrug, and "The Marvels" was one of the worst-received Marvel movies. Although, to be fair to DaCosta, anytime a director with a vision ends up making a lackluster Marvel movie, you can hand a lot of that blame to the machine.

Anyway, DaCosta shot "The Bone Temple" right after "28 Years Later" finished, and it has been confirmed that Murphy is in that movie as Jim. Then, there are plans for another movie, which will feature Murphy, to round out a trilogy...hopefully. As Boyle explained:

We haven’t got the money for the third one yet. It will depend how the first one does, I guess. But hopefully if we do okay, they’ll give us the  go-ahead for the money and for the third one. Everybody’s standing by  for that, really. Including Cillian.

"The Bone Temple" is set to hit theaters in January 2026. After that, if you want to see what Boyle has in mind for the third movie in this new trilogy, be sure to go see "28 Years Later" after it comes out June 20.

(h/t IGN)