28 Years Later: The Bone Temple director made one request to writer Alex Garland

28 Years Later is one of 2025’s biggest horror hits, and in advance of Nia DaCosta’s sequel The Bone Temple hitting screens, the director has revealed what she wanted changed in the script.

28 Years Later was both a critical and commercial smash, grossing more than $150 million from a reported $60 million budget, and managing a Rotten Tomatoes score of 88% with critics.

We gave the movie 4-stars, and wrote in our 28 Years Later review that it’s a “a soulful story about the gift of life, the heartbreak of death, and what it takes to keep moving forward no matter what the universe throws at you.”

A sequel titled The Bone Temple was shooting before 28 Years Later even hit screens, with Alex Garland again writing, and Nia DaCosta taking over directorial duties from Danny Boyle. And DaCosta has revealed the one demand she made having read the script.

Nia DaCosta wanted “more infected” in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

Sony Pictures

Nia DaCosta directed the recent Candyman sequel, followed by superhero movie The Marvels, and during an Edinburgh Film Festival Q&A (as reported by THR), said that The Bone Temple got right something that those movies got wrong.

“Making the 28 Years Later sequel was one of the best filmmaking experiences I’ve had,” says DaCosta. “One of the issues I had with Candyman and Marvels was the lack of a really solid script, which is always gonna just wreak havoc on the whole process.

“But 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.”

As for how she progressed from there, DaCosta says: “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.”

The Bone Temple is out on January 6, 2026. For more 28 Yeas Later action, we’ve got a convincing Jim theory, plus another theory that makes The Bone Temple even more frightening.

Plus you can check out our breakdown of the new infected, details of how the Alpha chase was filmed, plus the the Slow Low mystery solved .