Despite being released in 2002, Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later has been out of print for some time. This has now been resolved – but still…
A story penned as much to illustrate the frailty of streaming options as much as highlighting the return of a film to digital services. Danny Boyle’s 2002 hit 28 Days Later is, as you likely well know, getting a further follow-up in 2025. A new trilogy in fact, kicking off with 28 Years Later next June.
However, if the noise surrounding the film had sent you to digital services to try and watch the original? Well, you’d have been out of luck. It wasn’t available to stream, to digitally rent, to digitally buy, anything like that. With a firm tap of the physical media sign, your options were limited. An out of print DVD is still available, but that was your lot.
The original film was backed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, now part of the Disney empire, but also the UK Film Council and DNA Films. As such the rights weren’t particularly straightforward, and the movie had fallen out of circulation. Staggering really, for a relatively popular film from the last 25 years.
What’s brought it back to streaming is the chequebook of Sony in this instance, with the firm now holding the home entertainment rights to this and first follow-up 28 Months Later, and making the movie available to rent online again.
However, had Sony not pressed ahead with the sequel trilogy? Well, it’s not hard to conclude that the films may have remained in some degree of limbo. Hopefully now, a fresh physical media release might follow too, to put the availability of the movies on a better footing.
We’ll keep you posted on that as we hear it, but fingers crossed. In the meantime, here’s the trailer for 28 Years Later that popped up last week, and you can find 28 Days Later to digitally rent here.
