Alex Garland, the writer of the long-awaited movie “28 Years Later,” told Business Insider that sequels have become less profitable — and he thinks Marvel is partly to blame.
The entertainment industry is trying to balance banking on the popularity of sequels, prequels, and reboots with taking risks to commission new stories.
In an interview before “28 Days Later” arrives in theaters on Friday, BI asked Alex Garland and the film’s director, Danny Boyle, if it’s harder to get original movies made nowadays. Boyle and Garland co-created 2002’s “28 Days Later,” which was an original idea at the time.
“Obviously, studios are profit machines, they are driven by that,” Boyle said. “And so they’re alert to what works, and so they tend to lean on sequels if they can, because it gives them a measure of security.”
However, Garland added, “I think sequels are seen as diminishing returns.”
“I don’t wanna sort of throw shade as it were, but Marvel has something to do with this,” he said. “It’s not a criticism of Marvel, I just think people got oversaturated.”
While sequels of films, including 2003’s “Pirates of the Caribbean,” 2001’s “Fast and Furious,” and 2001’s “Harry Potter,” raked in hundreds of millions of dollars more than the originals, they’re not the reliable hits they once were.
Despite earning $379 million and critical acclaim, Marvel’s “Thunderbolts,” the 36th sequel of the franchise, made $371 million. This was considered a flop against its $180 million shooting budget and $100 million marketing budget, per Variety.
Similarly, the underperforming DC sequel “Shazam: Fury of the Gods” made $134 million against its $125 million budget.
Garland said that “post-Marvel,” he believes it has become easier to make original films. “That’s the way I see it, but I could be wrong,” he said.
When he expressed a similar sentiment earlier in the interview, Boyle replied: “Well, I’m not sure a lot of other people would agree with that. I think your original films… I think it’s quite tough for people to get original material made.”
Garland, who co-directed 2025’s “Warfare” and 2024’s “Civil War,” tied what he sees as a shift in priorities for big studios to the rise of indie studios.
“Studios are more open to odder things,” he said. “I think that Neon and A24 and those studios have had an effect on the bigger studios.
“They’ve slightly broadened their horizons, and some of it is just from some filmmakers forging forwards, like, your guy, Nolan, and ‘Oppenheimer,’ that just proves a point.”
“Barbenheimer,” the coincidental simultaneous release of Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” was a huge phenomenon in 2023. The former made $1.4 billion at the box office while the latter took $975 million. Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners,” meanwhile, overperformed in April and earned $361 million.
Boyle said Barbenhiemer and “Sinners” by Ryan Coogler were a “shot in the arm for cinema.”
He added: “I think that people do get encouraged by success.”
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