Cillian Murphy will be reprising his role as Jim in the 28 Years Later sequel The Bone Temple, but Danny Boyle has said he’ll be more significant to the third movie, sparking a convincing theory.
28 Years Later and The Bone Temple were shot back-to-back, meaning Boyle needed another director to take the reins on directing duties for the second. The Marvels and Candyman’s Nia DaCosta stepped in, with Boyle sharing praise for her work.
In a conversation with ScreenRant, the director also revealed that Murphy’s Jim is “introduced beautifully” at the end of The Bone Temple and that “Cillian will be a huge part of the third movie.”
He compared it to the way we were introduced to Jimmy (Jack O’Connell) at the end of 28 Years Later, and this might be a clue for where the trilogy is headed. Warning: spoilers ahead!
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple might see Jim vs Jimmy
The theory goes that Spike (Alfie Williams) discovers that the Power Rangers-esque Jimmy Savile kung fu cult are actually dangerous people, and Jim steps in to save him, becoming the role model he’s always needed.
After all, his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is toxic, his mother Isla (Jodie Comer) is dead, and he has no real experience of the outside world. So, when he ventures to the mainland alone and the Jimmys step in to save him, they look like true superheroes in his eyes.
But could this all be an illusion? The fact that Spike has a toy Power Ranger suggests this scene could just be how it appears in a child’s eyes. In reality, they’re a group of survivors who idolize Jimmy Savile – the UK’s worst child sex offender.
Jamie’s upside down crucifix suggests something more sinister at play, which reflects the wider theme of the 28 Days Later franchise: that humans are the real threat.
Boyle revealed to IndieWire that he spoke to DaCosta about the trilogy’s themes, to which she said, “Well, I think the first one is about the nature of family. The second one’s about the nature of evil. And the third one is about the nature of redemption.”
If it sticks to this plan, Jimmy represents evil, and Jim could essentially save Spike from the cult at the end of The Bone Temple.
Jim could be a mentor to Spike
A viewer of the new movie elaborated on this theory, writing, “I think that the Jimmys’ cool, heroic and badass Power Rangers antics to aid Spike come from his fantasies of what the Power Rangers were like and after a while he sees that they’re a lot nastier (due to their main inspiration) than he realised.
“Jim saves Spike this time and that’s when he sees what real heroism looks like. I feel like this will be at the very end as the correction to Spike’s idolisation of the Jimmys at the end of 28 Years Later.
“Danny said that The Bone Temple will be about the nature of evil, the third one will be about redemption. So not only will Spike learn from Jim in the third one, Jamie will get to fufill his own redemption.”
Another agreed, “I can absolutely get behind this. I’ve always found that a big element of Jim’s character arc in 28 Days Later is the constant search of a father figure or someone to gravitate towards for direction and security (The Priest, Frank, Major West) until he eventually finds the inner strength to take action and fight for his survival.
“With everything Jim has been through, he would make an ideal mentor to Spike and it would be thematically fitting.
“Jim might see a lot of his younger self in Spike and seeing him with the Jimmy gang would remind him of how he himself once turned to false guardians (West and his soldiers) in a time of great uncertainty.”
“I firmly believe we’re going to get a far more dark and harrowing film in Bone temple,” they added.
“Spike has seen the genuine kindness of humanity with his mother and Dr Kelson, and as you rightly said, he’ll now experience the sheer depravity and cruelty people are capable of from the group he believes to be valiant and righteous.”
We got a hint of this in 28 Years Later. Remember the man who was hung up and left for the infected? He had “Jimmy” carved into his torso. We can expect plenty more where that came from in The Bone Temple, which is set to land in cinemas on January 16, 2026.
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