This month’s ferocious sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple will reintroduce fans to a “regressed” version of teenager Spike (played by Alfie Williams), who ended up in the company of Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) and his acrobatic killers when the previous movie came to a wild close. Directed by Nia DaCosta — Danny Boyle helmed 28 Years Later and plans to return for the third and final chapter — The Bone Temple is already being touted as a much “weirder” follow-up than fans expected, as well as “brutally audacious” and “easily more polarizing” than 2025’s summer event movie.
Ahead of The Bone Temple‘s release, actor Williams spoke to NME about everything from his protagonist’s journey, to whether or not he needed to get super fit for the back-to-back 28 Years Later shoots. “[Spike] dealt with the infected in the first one, and you see him grow up into this strong figure,” he said. “And in the second one, he hasn’t really dealt with humans, so he goes back to being the scared little kid again, you know? So he’s regressed back to how he was in the first film.”
In Boyle’s movie, Spike begins as a timid yet tenacious islander, who grows into something of a protector for his sick mum as they’re assailed by the British mainland’s horde of infected. Newly under the wing of the Jimmy cult, though, it sounds like Spike shrinks into himself. Here’s what the 15-year-old had to share about the physicality of this iconic franchise:
“There’s a lot of running. I’m not the fittest guy, but obviously while you were on set, you were doing lots of running and exercising. Danny made us do a lot of squats to get ready for a scene so I could get out of breath! Not that I needed to because we were running for ages!”
Nia DaCosta ‘Asked For More Infected’ in ‘The Bone Temple’ Script
Meanwhile, director DaCosta revealed at the Edinburgh International Film Festival that working on The Bone Temple was “one of the best filmmaking experiences I’ve had”, although she did request one major alteration to Alex Garland’s script.
“Alex Garland hands you a script, and you’re like, ‘This is amazing.’ You don’t really have to change it, although I did, I basically asked for more infected. That was, like, my big contribution. I inherited an amazing cast, then I was given the leeway to cast the rest of the film.
“There were a couple of locations I inherited. I was given the leeway to develop all the other locations. Some of it overlapped, like the character Samson — Danny and I would collaborate a bit on the look, but at the end of the day, Danny shoots so different from the way I shoot.”
DaCosta, whose last project was Hedda starring Tessa Thompson, is well aware of the hallowed ground she’s stepped on by directing The Bone Temple. “28 Days Later was one of my seminal films growing up,” she noted. “I had the DVD in my house. I watched it all the time.
“Obviously, I fell in love with Cillian Murphy. And Danny Boyle is a bonkers f****** filmmaker. No one else can make a Danny Boyle film, and that was actually the biggest part of my pitch for the movie. I was like, ‘No one else can do that and I don’t have any intention of doing that. Here’s how I see the film. What do you think?'”
- Release Date
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January 16, 2026
- Director
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Nia DaCosta