28 Days Later (2002) on Netflix
Animal rights activists free an infected chimpanzee from a Cambridge lab. Twenty-eight days later, courier Jim wakes from a coma in deserted London, where survivors Selena and Mark find him.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.5/10556,012 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes87%
Trailer
Plot summary
A rage virus escapes during an animal rights raid on a Cambridge laboratory, and Great Britain collapses within days. Twenty-eight days afterward, bicycle courier Jim wakes from a coma in a deserted London hospital, having been injured before the outbreak began. He walks empty streets past newspapers announcing a mass evacuation and finds a church where a massacre has taken place. Infected people rush him, and he runs until Selena and Mark pull him into their refuge, a shop inside a Tube station, where they explain how the virus turned most of the population into violent attackers. Jim wants to reach his parents' house, and the two survivors agree to travel with him.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about 28 Days Later (2002)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The crew had asked Westminster City Council for permission to place the bus outside Downing Street, which was denied; when they arrived there at 4am and nobody from the council was present, they placed the bus there anyway.
- Murphy originally auditioned for the role with a modern Received Pronunciation accent, as Jim was written to be English. However, during filming, Boyle and Murphy decided to revert to the actor's natural accent, and rewrote the character as Irish.
- The September 11 attacks took place during filming, and Boyle notes the parallel between the "missing persons" flyers seen at the beginning of the film and similar flyers posted in New York City in the wake of the attacks.
- Producer Andrew Macdonald had access to National Lottery funding and pitched the film to Universal Pictures, who declined to support it. Budget constraints proved such an issue that Christopher Eccleston had to take an emergency pay cut, before Fox Searchlight picked it up for co-financing in June 2001.
- Christopher Nolan said he cast Murphy as Scarecrow in Batman Begins (2005) after being impressed by his performance in 28 Days Later.
