Danny Boyle, the director of 28 Years Later, has spoken out about the film’s controversial Jimmy Saville ending which has left fans split down the middle.
28 Years Later as a whole has garnered near unanimous positive reaction from fans, sitting at 89% on Rotten Tomatoes and debuting with a whopping $60 million at the box office.
The final two minutes of the film, however, called the ‘most unexpected ending of all time’, is deeply controversial even amongst fans of the franchise who loved the film.
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One fan said of the final two minutes: “Sort of appreciate that 28 Years Later, an excellent film, ends on a note so weird it threatens to tank the whole thing lol.”
Spoilers for the ending to 28 Years Later below
Those who’ve seen the film will know that the final two minutes reveal Jack O’Connell’s character, a cult leader fronting up a gang called ‘The Jimmies’.
The group are all shockingly dressed as Jimmy Savile, the late TV Presenter who was found to have been a horrific sexual abuser after he died.
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The Jimmies leap out of nowhere to help protect the main character Spike, saving him in Power Ranger-esque acrobatic style, leading him to join their gang.
Danny Boyle has spoken about this ending, stating that it sets up the upcoming sequel where the gang will play a major part.
Speaking to BAFTA, Danny Boyle revealed his reaction to reading Alex Garland’s screenplay and getting to the scene in which The Jimmies save Spike.
He said of the scene: “It is shocking. It returns you to the fact this is a horror film but not in a way you might be expecting.
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“They go on to dominate the second film… I thought ‘This is the most original piece of writing I’ve seen since Clockwork Orange.’”
Garland wrote the script for 28 Years Later and the sequel 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which will be directed by Nia DaCosta with involvement from Boyle.
In another interview with IndieWire, Boyle revealed that, while the first film focuses on the planned 28 Years trilogy that focuses on the nature of family, the second focuses on ‘the nature of evil’ due to the heavy involvement of the Jimmies.
Explaining the thought process behind the ending, Boyle said of the use of the imagery of Jimmy Saville in an interview with Business Insider: “He's as much to do with pop culture as he is to do with sportswear, to do with cricket, to do with the honours system.
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“It's all kind of twisting in this partial remembrance, clinging onto things and then recreating them as an image for followers.”
Writer Alex Garland added in the same interview: “The thing about looking back is how selective memory is.
“It cherry picks and it has amnesia, and crucially, it also misremembers. We are living in a time right now which is absolutely dominated by a misremembered past.”
The Jimmy Saville ending is one that, whilst initially repelling, seems to have stuck with many fans.
One posted a comment on TikTok saying: “It caught me off guard at the cinema, but hearing about the plot of the sequel, it makes sense. Alex Garland knows his stuff.”
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Another said: “I think the ending is kind of genius representation of innocence being destroyed.”
28 Years Later is available to watch in cinemas now.
Topics: 28 Years Later, Jimmy Savile, Film, TV and Film
Michael Slavin