We’ve all been expecting that Danny Boyle and Alex Garland‘s “28 Years Later,” a follow-up to “28 Days Later,” was coming together nicely with a script penned by Garland and Boyle said to be interested in directing the horror project. There is now a major development as The Hollywood Reporter has learned that “28 Years Later” is not already up for auction with multiple studios eyeing the feature film, but there is now a potential for a trilogy of new installments focusing on the rage virus that took over the United Kingdom and in “28 Weeks Later,” France then Europe.

Garland is set to write all three movies with budgets set around $75 million and Boyle is set to direct the first one. We’re a little surprised that this is going to auction with both studios and streamers being courted as new buyers as 20th Century Studios were the distributors on the last two movies. Perhaps, the two creatives are seeking a better deal than what might have been offered in the past with more genre-friendly studios like A24, Focus Features, and NEON potentially getting their hands on an established horror franchise.

UPDATE: THR has revealed that Sony Pictures has landed the next two movies after a heated bidding war, including the next installment tentatively titled “28 Years Later,” making the studio the new home for the Rage Virus franchise after the last two films were released by 20th Century Fox. There is also confirmation that original star and recent Oscar-nominee Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”) will executive produce along with potentially reprising his role.

The original film helped introduce audiences to a young up-and-coming Irish actor named Cillian Murphy, who is now poised to be nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his role in Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb drama “Oppenheimer.” While Murphy has said in press interviews he’s open to the idea of reprising his role from “28 Days Later,” that return has yet to be made official or how it could impact the new film’s story.

“28 Days Later” focused on an outbreak of the “rage virus” after animal activists in England attempt to rescue a group of animals from a secret laboratory facility testing biological viruses. Once one of the members is bitten by an infected chimp the rage virus spreads across the country and our protagonist wakes up 28 days later in an abandoned hospital only to find that London is mostly in the same state only to find that surviving humans are crazed and violent hordes. A sequel from 2007, that featured Rose Byrne, Robert Carlyle, Imogen Poots, Jeremy Renner, and Idris Elba among the cast, saw the attempt to repopulate the country after most of the virus carriers had been put down by the United States military, only for another outbreak to happen within the guarded housing facility.

Garland has been aiming to move back into his comfort zone as a novelist and screenwriter with his upcoming A24 thriller, “Civil War,” seemingly like his last directorial effort for the next couple of years (Things could, of course, change). However, seeing him reunite with Boyle after successfully reigniting the horror sub-genre of crazed hordes zombies or otherwise (Those infected humans aren’t exactly zombies).

SOURCE: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER