28 Years Later first trailer seems to reveal dark fate for Cillian Murphy’s hero

It's all anyone who has seen the teaser is talking about.

In recent months, casting updates for the horror blockbuster hit the web, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes confirmed to headline the long-awaited sequel.

This was as Cillian Murphy - who starred as everyman hero Jim in the original 2002 flick - was said to be returning to the franchise in a small role.

And though Murphy is not credited on the poster for 28 Years Later and is not heavily signposted in the first trailer for the horror, he is all anyone is talking about.

That is because there is a brief glimpse of a zombie in the teaser at around the 1:47 minute mark that bears a striking resemblance to the Irish actor.

"The zombie rising up in the field looked like my boi, Cillian Murphy," one person wrote in the YouTube comments under the trailer.

The original 28 Days Later focused on Murphy's character Jim, who awoke from a coma to discover that a highly contagious and aggression-inducing virus had caused the breakdown of British society.

A smash hit critically and commercially, the movie is credited with helping reinvigorate the zombie genre.

Five years later, it got a well-liked follow-up titled 28 Weeks Later, which focused on different characters.

Boyle and Garland executive produced 28 Weeks Later but did not direct or write that sequel.

28 Years Later is set to be the first in a new trilogy, which Garland will write and for which Boyle will direct the first entry.

Speaking about 28 Years Later's plot with IndieWire, Fiennes said: “It’s three films, of which two have been shot. Britain is 28 years into this terrible plague of infected people who are violent, rabid humans with a few pockets of uninfected communities.

"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.”

28 Years Later will be out in cinemas on 20 June 2025.

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