28 Years Later: The Bone Temple Continues Unfortunate Box Office Trend With Week 2 Drop

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is continuing an unfortunate franchise trend with its week 2 drop. The new movie, which is the fourth installment in ...-apocalyptic 28 Days Later franchise, is a direct sequel to 2025’s 28 Years Later. It was directed by Nia DaCosta from a screenplay by Alex Garland and stars Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell, Alfie Williams, and Chi Lewis-Parry.

2026’s 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple debuted on January 16 and earned a 3-day debut of $12.5 million, which marked a significant drop from the previous installment’s $30 million. Nevertheless, it was still the second-best domestic opening weekend of the entire franchise.

Per Deadline, as of Saturday morning, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is projected to close its sophomore weekend with a 3-day total of $4.2 million at the domestic box office. This sees it dropping a rough 66% from its opening weekend, which is about even with the 67.5% sophomore drop of 2025’s 28 Years Later.

Sophomore weekend drops of 60% or more are hardly uncommon in the horror genre, which tends to have frontloaded releases. In fact, there are quite a few horror titles on the chart of the 50 biggest week 2 drops of all time, including 2026’s We Bury the Dead (No. 10, -85.7%), 2025’s Dangerous Animals (No. 19, -82.6%), and 2009’s Friday the 13th (No. 36, -80.4%).

However, the two newest installments are performing significantly worse than the previous two 28 Days Later movies. The original installment only dropped 40.3% at the domestic box office in 2003, while 2007’s 28 Weeks Later dropped 44.4% during its own sophomore weekend.

These diminishing returns could ultimately prevent the 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple release from turning a profit. The movie reportedly cost $63 million, which could place its estimated theatrical break-even point as high as $157 million.

The 2025 installment barely crested its own estimated $150 million break-even point, grossing just $151.3 million globally. Considering the fact that the sequel seems to be more or less on the same trajectory at the domestic box office, The Bone Temple might not even be able to gross more than $65 million worldwide by the end of its theatrical run.

Although the Years movies were originally intended to be a trilogy, if 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple fails to break even, it seems highly likely that the third installment will never come to fruition.

Enjoy ScreenRant’s box office coverage? Click below to sign up for my weekly box office newsletter (make sure to check “Box Office” in your preferences) and get exclusive analysis, predictions, and more:

Sign Up