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How great does 28 Years Later look? Danny Boyle’s long-awaited follow-up to the 2002 horror classic looks incredibly promising, all the more so because Nia DaCosta’s (Candyman) sequel was filmed back-to-back with the first. Movies really are back, baby. With the release of the sequel’s trailer—which, by the way, is one of the best movie trailers in a long time—you might be wondering where you can revisit the franchise on streaming. Well, I’ve got some good news, and some better news.
The good news is that Juan Carlos Fresnadillo’s fantastic sequel 28 Weeks Later is currently streaming on Hulu. In the sequel: “Twenty-eight weeks after a virus has wiped out all human life in the UK, the island is declared safe, and people start to move back, only to be attacked by thousands who have been infected by a new airborne version of the virus.” Jeremy Renner and Rose Byrne star, and while it’s not quite as strong as the first film, it does have one of the greatest opening scenes of all time, solidifying how much life was left in Garland and Boyle’s franchise.
The better news is that the OG classic, the movie that fundamentally reinvented what a zombie movie could be, can finally be rented and purchased online. Previously, you couldn’t rent it, you couldn’t stream it, and worse still, you couldn’t even buy a nice, crisp Blu-Ray disc of it anywhere, at least not new. That’s because of a complicated rights fiasco. When the Walt Disney Corporation acquired 20th Century Fox in 2019, 28 Days Later was available to stream. The film was removed quietly some time after because—bear with me—28 Days Later was independently financed, and later acquired by Fox’s Searchlight Pictures. Sony Pictures now owns the rights, though Disney retains ownership of the sequel.
The long and short of it is that 28 Days Later had been stuck in a perennial limbo since the early aughts. There were no new physical media releases, and no opportunities to stream. Previously, your best bet was to track down a used copy of the original run of DVDs. That remains the case for physical media afficianados. Thrift stores are great places to check—even if you’re more likely to find 200 copies of Twilight than a great horror movie—and for the online folk, eBay is always a solid option. But for the first time in years, you can at least access the film digitally.
28 Days Later will be available to rent/purchase starting on December 18, 2024.
What do you think? Were you a fan of 28 Days Later? What about Weeks? Looking forward to the sequel? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
Categorized:News
