Nia DaCosta Ditches Backflips for Pure Terror in 28 Years Later Sequel

The wild acrobatic sequences that made 28 Years Later's finale so memorable won't be making a comeback in The Bone Temple. Director Nia DaCosta made that crystal clear during a recent conversation about her upcoming horror sequel, which takes the franchise in a completely different direction.

Jack O'Connell's gravity-defying Jimmys stole the show in Danny Boyle's film, flipping and spinning through infected hordes in a burst of colorful chaos. But DaCosta's vision for The Bone Temple strips away the theatrical flourishes in favor of something far more sinister.

A Different Kind of Jimmy

"[The Jimmys] are mostly in my film. They weren't in the first script as much, actually, in the first draft, and then they were built in a bit more for that last scene," DaCosta explained. "But it was funny because Danny [Boyle] and I would be like casting, and he'd be like, 'Oh, I want people who are really physical, like backflips.' And I was like, 'Why?!' I knew I wasn't going to be needing any of that [in The Bone Temple]. And then I saw it and said, 'Oh my gosh, I love it.'"

The Bone Temple picks up right where its predecessor left off. Spike faces a brutal initiation into the Jimmys' death cult before joining Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal and his seven fingers on the road. This time around, the Jimmys serve as the backbone of a story that pits good against evil in the most elemental way possible.

Creative Freedom Under Boyle and Garland

DaCosta didn't try to copy Boyle's distinctive style. Instead, she pitched producers on her own vision from day one. "The first thing I said when I met with the producers, including Danny and Alex, was: 'I love this, but if you're looking for like a Danny Boyle-ish film, I'm not the right person; I don't know how to do that. He's an idiosyncratic genius, and I'm not Danny Boyle. But here's what I see and here's what I'd like to do, and if that's what you're into, then great.'"

The gamble paid off. Boyle and Alex Garland gave her complete creative control to shape The Bone Temple according to her vision. "And then they were into it, and so really I had the freedom to make the movie as I saw it," she said.

Fear and Faith Replace Grief

While several characters return, including Spike (Alfie Williams), Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), and Alpha Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry), The Bone Temple explores different emotional territory. Where the first film dealt with grief, DaCosta's sequel focuses on fear and faith.

"The two scripts were quite different and had different characters," she noted. "So I felt like there was a lot of liberty, actually, to make something that felt unique."

When asked directly about incorporating similar acrobatics or whether a "Backflip Cut" exists, DaCosta's response was definitive: "Absolutely not. No, no, no. There's no slow-mo backflips to metal music."