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Marvels? What Marvels? Filmmaker Nia DaCosta comes back swinging from the MCU on Friday with 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, a visceral horror film that not only ups the ante on Danny Boyle’s previous chapter but makes Ari Aster’s Midsommar look like a Disney princess movie.
Ralph Fiennes’ Dr. Kelson may be living in the heart of the dystopian UK countryside future with the infected (don’t call them zombies) around him, quite controlled, but his tranquility is about to get blown to hell with the arrival of Sir Jimmy Crystal’s (Jack O’Connell) Jimmy gang. When we last left the Jimmys in 28 Years Later, they seemed like, well, fun, good guys to have on your side. Uh, no.
Says DaCosta on the latest episode of Deadline’s Crew Call, “(The sequel) gets to expand on these existential themes. When Kelson says ‘Memento mori, memento amore’ — ‘Remember, you must die. Remember, you must love’ — he’s really talking about how to manage meaning in your life, how to create meaning in a life that feels meaningless, and how to hold on to hope in a world that feels lost.”
“His way of attaining meaning is with the connection and believing in each other as humans, and Jimmy is the exact opposite. It’s sort of nihilistic and violent and horrific. And, so, I think to match the beauty of Kelson, you have to have the brutality on the other side.”
DaCosta talks to us about taking over the latest installment from Boyle and how she landed the gig. She also takes a look back at The Marvels, which didn’t do so well at the box office coming out of the 2023 Hollywood strikes. Following Sony’s excited fan screening of Bone Temple last month, the studio fast-tracked the next 28 Years installment from scribe Alex Garland, with Boyle potentially returning to helm and Cillian Murphy in talks to star.
Here’s our conversation with DaCosta:
English (US) ·