(Image: Sony Pictures)
"Ex Machina" director Alex Garland and "The Last of Us" game director Neil Druckmann recently sat down for a conversation on Sony's "Creator to Creator" podcast to discuss their creative journeys. With Garland promoting his co-directed war film "Warfare" and Druckmann promoting the second season of the live-action "The Last of Us" series, the two creators, both known for their work in the zombie genre, had much to discuss.
During the show, the two discussed how their works have influenced one another. Garland admitted that his screenplay for "28 Days Later" was initially inspired by the first "Resident Evil" game. In turn, Druckmann shared that "28 Days Later" was a major source of inspiration for creating "The Last of Us." Garland then revealed that "The Last of Us" later inspired his concept for the upcoming third installment, "28 Years Later," even praising Druckmann's game for having a superior narrative and emotional depth compared to "28 Days Later."
(Image: Sony Pictures)
Speaking on "28 Years Later," Garland also shared an early story concept he developed, which is completely different from the version now being filmed. He explained that the idea for a third film came to him many years after the last one: "I had this idea that the protagonist was a Chinese special forces soldier, and the UK was quarantined, and China had discovered that the virus had been weaponized—I'm remembering the details now—and to counter that weapon, they had to go to the original lab in the UK that created the virus, because if you have the pathogen, you can create a vaccine. That was the concept of the story, and it was conceived before the COVID pandemic."
Garland continued, "Danny Boyle [director of the first film] read the script at the time and was sort of like, 'Yeah, okay, I'm kind of interested in directing it.' But I've known Danny for many years, and I could tell he wasn't really keen on it. I later thought about why he didn't like the script, and then I realized it was because it just wasn't good enough. I saw the problem." As a result, Garland conceived the completely different version that is now in production (for plot details, click here), which finally convinced Danny Boyle to return to the director's chair.