After writing 28 Days Later, Alex Garland went on to direct some of the most well-known sci-fi features of the last decade, like 2014’s Ex Machina and 2018’s Annihilation. While Garland was creating other works, 28 Days Later got a sequel titled 28 Weeks Later in 2017, but now he is back with the franchise, writing the upcoming third feature, 28 Years Later.

The latest installment is “set 28 years after the Rage virus was first released and brought down the United Kingdom,” with the plot “focusing on a father and son living in a small island community who have to venture out into the world and see the horrors that have persisted.” This film is to be the catalyst that will launch a new trilogy installment to the franchise. The cast is made up of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer, Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, and Erin Kellyman.

Garland sat down with The Playlist’s Mike DeAngelo on Friday to promote his new film, Warfare, and shared his experience of returning to the horror franchise. For Garland, it seems like “enough time had passed” for him and director Danny Boyle to return to the franchise. He described the original film as “very uncynical… a punk sensibility,” and to shoot others, “you couldn’t be in a cynical mindset.” Garland continues to explain, “There was a key idea that felt tonally correct to what we did 20-something years ago” that ultimately made them return to the newest installment.

While 28 Weeks Later did not do horribly, it did not get the same acclaim as its predecessor. This could be explained by a year of rewrites from Rowan Joffé’s original script by directors Juan Carlos Fresnadillo along with writers Jesus Olmo and Enrique López Lavine. It can be inferred that 28 Years Later will be a return to form as the original creators are back in the driver’s seats, but only when it is released on June 20th of this year will we know for sure.