AMC, Your Move: First Reactions to 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Show a Well-Made Walking Dead Movie Could Rake in Billions

So, the zombie genre refuses to stay dead. Sony is rolling out 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple next, and the early buzz is weirdly unanimous: people are calling it the best entry yet. That lands at the same time AMC is still living with the hangover of its never-happened Walking Dead movie trilogy. Two very different roads, one very clear lesson.

Early reactions: Bone Temple is already getting the crown

First screening chatter hit in December, with outlets like Culture Crave passing along the same takeaway: Bone Temple is the franchise high point. The studio says the sequel lands in U.S. theaters on January 16, 2026.

Why 28 Years Later hit like a truck

The last film, 28 Years Later (yes, the sequel to 28 Weeks Later), wasn't just another sprinting-ghoul rerun. Danny Boyle went hard on mood and scale, and the movie centered on a simple, sharp hook: a kid doing everything he can for his mom in a world that's gone to pieces. Ralph Fiennes anchored it, the box office popped to $150 million, and the scares weren't just loud — they lingered. You remember the silhouette on the horizon at sunset. You remember that nerve-shredding chase across open water. Post-COVID, it felt like one of the few zombie films that actually had something in the tank beyond jump scares.

• Title: 28 Years Later
• Franchise: 28 Days Later series (direct follow-up to 28 Weeks Later)
• Genre: Post-apocalyptic horror/thriller
• Director: Danny Boyle
• Writer: Alex Garland
• Producers: Danny Boyle, Alex Garland, Andrew Macdonald
• Cinematography: Anthony Dod Mantle
• Timeline: About 28 years after the original outbreak
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
• IMDb: 6.6/10
• Box office: $150 million

Meanwhile, the Walking Dead movies that never were

The Walking Dead wrapped three years ago, which still feels wild given how massive it was. AMC had a plan to take Rick Grimes to the big screen with a full-on trilogy starring Andrew Lincoln. At the time, Chief Content Officer Scott M. Gimple laid out a giant multi-pronged future, promising films, spinoffs, and then-some:

"The story of Rick will go on in films. Right now, we're working on three but there's flexibility in that ... over the next several years, we're going to be doing specials, new series are quite a possibility, high-quality digital content and then some content that defies description at the moment. We're going to dig into the past and see old characters. We're going to introduce new characters and new situations."

Then the wheels came off. Andrew Lincoln left the main show in season 9, and the movie plans evaporated. COVID hit soon after, theaters went dark, and AMC swerved hard into streaming with AMC+. What we got instead were series like The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live — more TV, no Rick-in-theaters. A missed layup, considering how much zombie fandom shows up when you actually give them something sharp.

What AMC could learn from Boyle's playbook

28 Years Later proved you can revive familiar lore with actual craft: clear character stakes, a director with a point of view, and set pieces that feel specific rather than generic. In a space clogged with shambling retreads, Boyle and Garland made choices — visually, structurally, tonally — and the audience responded. That's the blueprint. AMC has done it before when TWD was at its peak; it can do it again if it aims for the same mix of story, character, and genuine dread instead of just quantity.

Where things stand right now

The Walking Dead is streaming on AMC+ in the U.S. 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple opens in U.S. theaters on January 16, 2026. If AMC still wants that big-screen zombie moment, the path is right there — and it's not exactly risky when the template is already a hit.