28 Years Later: The Bone Temple director Nia DaCosta is frustrated that the post-apocalyptic movie didn’t perform better at the box office when it was released earlier this year.
Nia DaCosta is frustrated that 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple underperformed at the box office.
The 36-year-old director helmed the fourth installment of the post-apocalyptic franchise earlier this year but “was disappointed” that audience interest didn’t match the critical praise for the film – which starred Ralph Fiennes, Jack O’Connell and Alfie Williams.
DaCosta told Empire magazine: “It’s so funny, because literally every barometer we use in this industry to determine whether or not a movie is good, and people like it and want to see it, was through the roof, and yet our box office wasn’t there.
“I made a great film, and I’m really proud of it, and people liked it. My friend said to me years ago, ‘Nia, your career is for you to enjoy’, and I really have been trying to put that into practice and take that to heart over the course of the past few years.”
The Hedda filmmaker continued: “Our careers are for us to enjoy, and obviously they’re stressful and hard, and anything that involves an audience is really bruising. You have to court and interact with people’s opinions of you and your work.
“And it’s usually not actually you – it’s an avatar of you created by a bunch of impressions.
“I’ve been working through that, and so when this came out and it didn’t do as well in terms of the money it made, I was disappointed. But I also was like, ‘I’m so happy that when people find the film, they’re going to enjoy the film.’ I wish it made more money, but I’m really proud of it.”
28 Years Later: The Bone Temple was released just 28 weeks after Danny Boyle’s long-awaited 2025 sequel 28 Years Later and DaCosta thinks the marketing stunt might have been a misjudgement as it confused audiences.
She said: “Yeah, but also I think maybe too soon, because people were like, ‘Oh yeah, I saw that last summer!’ I’m like, ‘No, no, so there’s a sequel!’ But yes, it was very clever.”
Nia became the first Black woman to helm a Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film when she got behind the camera on 2023’s The Marvels and felt that the movie’s failure at the box office stemmed from a “gleefulness” at seeing comic book flicks struggle at the cinema.
The director said: “I think there was a bit of gleefulness at the time around comic-book-movie failure.
“I think people who were like, ‘The movie f****** sucks’, are revisiting it, but it was always for the girlies.
“So many young girls come up to me and I get friendship bracelets. It’s really sweet. So it always had an audience, but for sure, now more people are like, ‘Oh yeah, that was really fun.'”
Despite The Marvels bombing at the box office, DaCosta would consider helming another comic book movie if she were given “autonomy” over the creative process.
She said: “I would absolutely do a comic-book movie again, for sure. It would just have to be the way that I made Hedda or the way I made Bone Temple, with a lot of autonomy.”
‘I wish it made more money’: Nia DaCosta disappointed by 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple’s poor box office return
