The emaciated infected person in the 28 Years Later trailer is not Cillian Murphy

Cillian Murphy is not playing the emaciated infected person shown in the recently released 28 Years Later trailer

28 Days Later director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have finally reunited to make a sequel to their zombie (or, if you prefer, infected people) movie classic. As we reporter earlier this year, this sequel is set up at Sony, is going to be called 28 Years Later – and it’s meant to launch a whole trilogy of 28 Days Later sequels. The theatrical release date is June 20th, 2025… and it has been said that 28 Days Later star Cillian Murphy returns for this film “in a surprising way.” When the trailer dropped online a couple of days ago, a lot of fans thought they spotted him in there, thinking that an emaciated infected person seen in the trailer was Murphy. Would they really spoil that surprise in the first trailer? Apparently not. The Guardian has been able to confirm that the emaciated infected person in the trailer is not played by Cillian Murphy, but by newcomer Angus Neill.

According to The Guardian, “Neill, an art dealer specialising in old masters, was talent-spotted by Boyle, who was much struck by his distinctive looks. Neill also works as a model, with his professional profile suggesting he has a 28-inch waist.”

Neill told them, “Danny told me he’d always had me in mind for the role. So we met up, hit it off, and I agreed to take part. On set he has an extraordinary ability to hypnotise you, and working with him on the film was a very, very intense experience.“

The cast of 28 Years Later also includes Jodie Comer (The Bikeriders), Aaron Taylor-Johnson (The Fall Guy), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), and Erin Kellyman (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier). In the original film, Murphy played bicycle courier Jim, who wakes up from a coma to find himself in an apocalyptic England that’s overrun by people who have been infected by a rage virus. Boyle and Garland went through several endings for 28 Days Later before landing on the one movie-goers saw in theatres – and that ending was the only one where Jim survived. So he’s still out there, ready to live through another rage virus nightmare 28 years later. As The Hollywood Reporter previously noted, “The 2002 film grossed $82.7 million globally and spawned a sequel, 2007’s 28 Weeks Later, though Boyle and Garland were only nominally involved as executive producers.”

Garland also wrote the screenplay for the sequel that will come after 28 Years Later. Of the two 28 Years Later projects currently in the works, Boyle only planned to direct the first one. For the second film, he has passed the helm over to Candyman and The Marvels director Nia DaCosta – and that sequel, titled 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple, has already wrapped production.

When 28 Years Later came up during an interview with IndieWire, Fiennes decided to go ahead and tell us all about it: “Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities. And it centers on a young boy who wants to find a doctor to help his dying mother. He leads his mother through this beautiful northern English terrain. But of course, around them hiding in forests and hills and woods are the infected. But he finds a doctor who is a man we might think is going to be weird and odd, but actually is a force for good.“

Thanks to their deal with Sony, each of these new films will be receiving a theatrical release and will have budgets in the $60 million range. 28 Years Later has a budget of $75 million.

Boyle and Garland are producing 28 Years Later with Bernie Bellew, original producer Andrew Macdonald, and Peter Rice, who was the head of Fox Searchlight Pictures when that company backed 28 Days Later. Murphy is executive producing.

Are you glad to know Cillian Murphy is not the emaciated infected person in the 28 Years Later trailer? Share your thoughts on this one by leaving a comment below.