Picture Credit: Sony Pictures
The Rage is heading to your living room sooner than expected. We can officially reveal that 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, the second installment in the highly anticipated new trilogy from Sony Pictures, has locked in its SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand) debut on Netflix US.
We can confirm that 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026) will be available to stream on Netflix US starting Tuesday, March 31st, 2026.
The film’s arrival on Netflix comes via the lucrative “Pay-1” window agreement between Sony Pictures and the streaming giant. This deal ensures that Sony’s theatrical slate lands exclusively on Netflix following its initial cinema and VOD (digital purchase) runs. That deal applies to just the US and a few other select regions for now, but it expands globally in 2027.
What makes this debut particularly noteworthy is the speed of the transition. Typically, it takes around 90-120 days for their movies to hit Netflix, so we were originally expecting it to land sometime around May 2026. Having premiered in theaters on January 16th, 2026, The Bone Temple is making its SVOD premiere just 74 days later—mirroring the aggressive streaming strategy seen with its predecessor, 28 Years Later (2025). The jump to Netflix follows its VOD release on February 17th.
Of course, the first movie is still streaming on Netflix through that same deal and will remain available throughout the remainder of 2026, with its expiration date set for March 20th, 2027. While the OG 28 Days Later was also made available for a time, it expired in February 2026.
The Lowdown: What is ‘The Bone Temple’ About?
Directed by Nia DaCosta (Candyman, The Marvels) and written by franchise architect Alex Garland, The Bone Temple serves as the middle chapter of the new trilogy. Shot back-to-back with the previous film, it shifts the focus from the open-road survival of the first entry to a more claustrophobic, psychological nightmare.
The story follows Dr. Ian Kelson (played by a chilling Ralph Fiennes) and his radical experiments within a fortified bunker known as the “Bone Temple.” As society outside continues to crumble under the weight of the Rage Virus, Kelson believes he has found a way to “evolve” the infection, using a captured Alpha infected named Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) as his primary subject.
The film also introduces a terrifying new survivor faction known as the “Jimmys,” led by the sadistic Jack O’Connell, who worship the virus as a form of divine intervention.
The movie notably struggled at the box office, grossing just shy of its initial budget, with numerous outlets reporting that the status of the third film is currently in limbo, although there’s been nothing official from Sony on that front.
Despite those box office woes, the franchise still has adoring fans on both the critics and audience sides, with Rotten Tomatoes giving the movie both a Certified Fresh and Verified Hot rating. Kyle Smith for the Wall Street Journal wrote, “Quirky touches, dry wit and first-rate characterizations make ‘The Bone Temple’ a rare treat and one of the finest zombie movies I’ve seen, not to mention a major improvement from last summer’s third entry in the series.”
The Cast
The ensemble features a mix of high-caliber dramatic talent and physical powerhouses:
- Ralph Fiennes as Dr. Ian Kelson.
- Jack O’Connell as the cult leader Jimmy Crystal.
- Alfie Williams as Spike.
- Erin Kellyman as Kelly.
- Chi Lewis-Parry as the Alpha infected, Samson.
- Cillian Murphy as Jim (reprising his role in a pivotal sequence).
Are you ready to enter the Bone Temple on March 31st? Let us know if you think this is the scariest entry in the franchise yet in the comments, and for more on what’s still to come throughout March 2026, keep it locked here on What’s on Netflix!
