28 Years Later had an alternate ending without this major character and it changes everything

Right now, everyone is talking about the long-awaited zombie film, 28 Years Later. The film follows a 12-year-old boy named Spike as he leaves his safe island home to face the infected chaos of the mainland. Along the way, he meets some unusual characters, but it’s the final scene that really stands out, where we meet the character Jimmy. I am still not over that wild final scene. And now, the film’s creators have revealed there was an alternate ending to 28 Years Later that would have changed everything.

At the end of the film, Spike meets Jimmy, played by Jack O’Connell. Jimmy appears out of nowhere with his strange gang, and it’s clear that he is dangerous. The director, Danny Boyle, revealed who Jimmy actually was. He said they wanted to show how evil can grow over time, even in a world that is trying to heal.

But it almost ended in another way.

28 Years Later alternate ending didn’t have this major character

via Sony Pictures

In an interview with ScreenRant, Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland said the original plan for 28 Years Later was very different. The initial ending didn’t even have Jimmy in it.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Boyle said, “when Jimmy did arrive, I remember thinking that’s the most original bit of screenwriting I’ve seen since Clockwork Orange.” And he’s not wrong. Jimmy’s arrival gave the film a dark, weird new energy that took things in a whole different direction.

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But it nearly ended in a way that Garland now describes as “too generic.” That version of the script had none of the shock or style that made the final cut so memorable. Garland said, “We went down an avenue, and the reason it wasn’t right was it was too generic.” Basically, it felt like every other zombie film, and they didn’t want that. So they scrapped it.

In that older version, the only thing that survived was a small scene with Swedish soldiers landing on Britain’s quarantined coast. Everything else was gone.

Jimmy, his cult, the whole unsettling final twist, all of it was part of the new, rewritten script. This is just bizarre to think about now because Jimmy isn’t just a cool final scene. He’s central to what’s coming next. The sequel, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, will focus heavily on his character. If they’d gone with that original ending, the rest of the trilogy just wouldn’t work. It would have be interesting to see what they might have done instead.

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