'28 Years Later' to Be First Blockbuster Movie Shot on iPhone - MacRumors
Skip to Content

'28 Years Later' to Be First Blockbuster Movie Shot on iPhone

by

With a budget of $75 million, Danny Boyle's "28 Years Later" will become the first major blockbuster movie to be shot on iPhone, WIRED reports.

28 years later iphone rigJodie Comer on the set of "28 Years Later" with an iPhone 15 Pro Max camera rig (right).

The upcoming post-apocalyptic British horror movie was shot over the summer using the iPhone 15 Pro Max as the principal camera, along with additional equipment such as aluminum cages and lens attachments. The filmmakers behind 28 Years Later apparently received technical assistance directly from Apple. 28 Years Later is the sequel to "28 Days Later" (2002) and "28 Weeks Later" (2007), which depict the aftermath of a zombie-style pandemic in the United Kingdom.

The original 28 Days Later movie was largely shot in 480p standard definition with a Canon XL-1 – a consumer-grade camcorder that wrote data to MiniDV tapes. This was partly due to the need to film complex scenes depicting an abandoned central London under very limited time constraints, where bulky traditional film cameras would have taken too long to set up. The unique shot-on-digital aesthetic subsequently became an iconic part of the movie, so the use of iPhones to shoot the latest addition to the series seems to pay homage to the original film's use of camcorders. The Oscar-winning cinematographer of the original movie, Anthony Dod Mantle, is also returning alongside Boyle.

Several smaller-scale movies have already been shot with iPhones, such as Sean Baker's "Tangerine" (2015) and Steven Soderbergh's "Unsane" (2018), but these films were limited-release, low-budget titles compared to the upcoming Boyle movie. 28 Years Later is expected to be the first of a new trilogy of films scripted by Alex Garland. The breakout star of the original movie, Cillian Murphy, is also expected to return. 28 Years Later is set for release on June 20, 2025.

Top Rated Comments

Apple Knowledge Navigator Avatar
Apple Knowledge Navigator
21 months ago
‘Shot on iPhone’ - with $2 million worth of rig.
Score: 79 Votes (Like | Disagree)
K
koil
21 months ago

Hollywood productions shot on iPhone don't make a lot of sense to me, but it's interesting nonetheless. If we look at the huge lens rigged up on the right side of the image, they might as well have attached a camera with a bigger sensor.
Yeah that's what I'm not understanding here. There's so much expensive equipment involved that I literally can't fathom why you'd want to then force that into a comparatively tiny sensor compared to what's available in dedicated equipment...

I'm guessing that Apple wants to be able to say "Oh you know that blockbuster? Filmed using the same device you can have in your pocket plus about $100,000 of lenses and other **** attached to it so that it no longer fits in even your largest backpack!", and have paid handsomely for the opportunity here.
Score: 46 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Schnegg Avatar
Schnegg
21 months ago
Hollywood productions shot on iPhone don't make a lot of sense to me, but it's interesting nonetheless. If we look at the huge lens rigged up on the right side of the image, they might as well have attached a camera with a bigger sensor.
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
O
oldwatery
21 months ago
Marketing taken to stupid extremes. I wonder how much Apple are paying for this pointless exercise?
Score: 40 Votes (Like | Disagree)
E
Evangelion
21 months ago
“28 days Later”, the first movie, was shot with a prosumer digital camcorder. So they have done something similar before.
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Michael Scrip Avatar
Michael Scrip
21 months ago
"Your cinematographer was so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn't stop to think if he should."

🤣
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments