Hacker Cinema
28 Years Later
2025 · Film · 115 min
Part of 28 Days/Weeks/Years Later Collection
Directed by Danny Boyle
Twenty-eight years after the Rage virus outbreak, a heavily-defended island survives connected to the mainland by a single causeway. When one of the group leaves the island into the dark heart of the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors as well.
1 negative7 neutralfrom 8 commenters
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8 comments on Hacker News
These kinds of shenanigans (BBC not keeping a copy of their productions) is one of the reasons that I'm a datahoarder and keep a large library of films/tv series that I'm interested in (mainly Scifi and horror).
The scary thing with streaming services is that even modern productions can become inaccessible via legal means e.g. the 28 Days Later film wasn't available when the 28 Years Later film was being shot.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the BBC as their online iPlayer service is terrible at letting me (a license payer) watch older productions that my money has contributed towards. Even shows from a few months ago become inaccessible as their default lifespan is 30 days on iPlayer. Some real old classics are easier to find on YouTube than BBC's iPlayer service.
There's definitely a "dark ages" of TV shows and films from the 70s/80s/90s as digital recording wasn't as common, so unpopular shows will just slip through the cracks as no streamer will be interested and there won't be decent copies available to be pirated.
The focus was naturally scenes and "vibes" that couldn't be achieved with traditional films cameras. Boyle and Mantle weren't afraid to use whatever was best for the job, which included drones and other camera systems as well. More on their iPhone camera rigs for anyone who's interested:
https://www.ign.com/articles/28-years-later-danny-boyle-goes-big-with-horror-sequel-widescreen-the-infected
https://www.motionpictures.org/2025/06/how-28-years-later-dp-anthony-dod-mantle-turned-20-iphones-and-a-custom-rig-into-danny-boyles-epic-vision/
https://www.wired.com/story/danny-boyle-says-shooting-on-iphones-let-him-capture-startling-violence-in-28-years-later/
Related: Driver POV footage for F1 was shot with Apple-created custom iPhone rigs as well.
IIRC, iPhones (and every other smartphone) records variable frame rate videos (VFR), whereas professional cameras can record constant frame rate videos (CFR).
I think that VFR videos need to be re-encoded into CFR videos in order to be able to work with all the footage shot by different devices. It sounds to me like with the Genlock feature, it could actually be possible to record CFR videos on an iPhone and also synchronize the iPhone with other devices so that both video and audio does not drift relative to other devices. But that's just my speculation as I couldn't find any details about the Genlock feature.
I would love to know how the team working on 28 years later handled synchronization of the multiple iPhones they were using to shoot some scenes of the movie and if they got a helping hand from Apple, which perhaps allowed them to use some internal APIs to access hidden features of the camera stack...
Movie people don't normally care about the finish of the iPhone they are using. And the ones that do, use a case.
I've seen all sorts of non-black (let alone matte black) iPhone rigs used for motion pictures, including white and natural titanium colors. Eg. 28 Years Later used a variety of iPhone configurations and colors.
But yeah, I'm surprised there's no black/space gray option this year. Some consumers won't buy any other color.
For 28 Years Later, note that while the iPhone sensor did in fact ultimately collect the photons for the movie, they attached substantial professional-grade glass to the front to augment the phone camera.
This is exactly it. A lot of the author's comments about skin tone and 'flat' colour are spot on though.
To your point, take six steps back and use the 5x zoom on an iPhone Pro and you'll get a much better effect.
As they say, the best camera is the one you have in your pocket. Physics means it can never replace a large sensor with a large lens...
... But Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, The Beach, Trainspotting, 127 Hours) was quite happy to film 28 Years Later entirely on the iPhone 15 Pro Max [1].
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/28-years-later-danny-boyles-new-zombie-flick-was-shot-on-an-iphone-15/
Most movies are pretty bad. Always have been. I feel like I got scammed for paying to see 28 Years Later.
Saw it this weekend, it's a solid Pixar movie. But I only learned about it because I was looking to go see a movie and Elio was the most original movie playing at the local theater; I'd heard nothing about it.
I have heard more about the two live-action remakes (Lilo and Stitch/How to Train Your Dragon) and the sequel (28 years later) that are currently showing.