After 28 Years Later’s Debut Trailer Goes Viral, Sony Announces 28 Days Later Digital Release Date

Cult classic zombie movie 28 Days Later has a digital release date, announced by Sony a week after the debut trailer for sequel 28 Years Later went viral.

After a long period of unavailability online, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later will be available to rent or buy digitally tomorrow, December 18, 2024. Expect it to pop up on the likes of Prime Video from then.

28 Days Later was one of Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy’s breakout roles back in 2002. He played Jim, a bicycle courier who woke from a coma to find himself in a post-apocalyptic London after an aggression-inducing virus led to the breakdown of society. Murphy failed to return for 2007’s 28 Weeks Later, which followed a different cast of characters. But he is executive producer of 28 Years Later, and has a mystery role in the film (no, he’s not the zombie in the trailer).

“Go back to Day 1…,” reads the official blurb attached to this re-release of 28 Days Later.

Animal rights activists free a group of infected chimpanzees to horrifying results in this speculative sci-fi horror effort from Trainspotting director Danny Boyle. Waking from a coma in a deserted London hospital 28 days later, bicycle courier Jim (Cillian Murphy) takes to the deserted city streets in a state of mystified confusion.

Joining forces with another group of survivors following a terrifying encounter in a seemingly abandoned church, Jim soon learns the truth behind the deserted streets and the menacing creatures that lurk in the shadows.

It’s soon revealed that the chimpanzees had been harboring a deadly virus that sends its victims into a furious, murderous rage, and in the days following the initial exposure, the entire population was nearly wiped out due to the resulting homicidal rampage. Is there still a glimmer of hope for humanity — or has the deadly “rage” virus found its way to foreign shores and infected the entire planet?

Boyle returns as director for 28 Years Later, due out June 20, 2025, as does scriptwriter Alex Garland. We first learned that 28 Years Later was officially greenlit back in January alongside plans for the revival to be a trilogy. What’s more, IGN had previously learned that The Marvels and Candyman director Nia DaCosta has been in talks to direct the second movie of the trilogy.

Image credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].