Trivia for the movie 28 Days Later
Memorable Movie Quotes
Sergeant Farrell: Well, I think Bill’s got a point. If you look at the whole life of the planet, we… you know, man, has only been around for a few blinks of an eye. So if the infection wipes us all out, that is a return to normality.
Major Henry West: …which puts us in a state of normality right now. People killing people.
Trivia
The exteriors of the streets of London were shot in the early hours of the morning on weekdays. The crew only had a couple of minutes each day, and crew members had to politely ask clubbers not to walk onto the streets.
The plane used in the film flew from Blackpool to the location in the lakes. It took the crew hours to make the same journey, but it took the pilot less than six minutes and cost £6,000 in fuel.
The hospital in the film is a real day hospital and is not open at weekends. The trust managers of the hospital hire out the hospital for weekends so the filmmakers paid them directly which benefited the finances of this public hospital.
The tower block where Hannah and her father lived was condemned and has now been demolished.
The tunnel scene was filmed in a new tunnel extension which the filmmakers had special permission to use.
Police allowed a stretch of the M1 motorway to be closed for a few minutes at a time for the scene where you see a long desolate stretch of road.
Most of the film was made using digital cameras to give it the really real look (the final scenes in the cottage were shot on 35mm film). An added benefit of the digital filming was that the London shots could be set up and executed much quicker than otherwise possible which helped the filmmakers exploit very tight time windows to complete the scenes of an empty London.
The angelic song that plays in the background, particularly during the car trip, is called “In Paradisum” by Gabriel Fauré.
Horror novelist Stephen King bought out an entire showing of the film in New York City.
The symbol used for this film is an international symbol for blood-borne biohazard.
The fighter jet pilot speaks Finnish. He asks “Lähetätkö helikopterin?” (“Can you please send a helicopter?”).
The flashback scenes of Jim’s parents were shot on Super 8mm film.
The word “fuck” is used 61 times throughout the whole film from the beginning to the end of the mansion scenes.
All of the scenes in the mansion that involved upstairs rooms were filmed downstairs as the mansion’s owner lives upstairs. When Jim jumps in through the window in the roof, he is actually jumping through a hole in the corridor upstairs down to the ground floor with rain effects upstairs.
While filming the mansion scenes, the crew’s favorite place was The Wooden Spoon in Downton, Wiltshire. They liked it so much that they gave them one of the dead bodies from the execution pile which can still be seen today sitting at a table.
The crew filed all of the necessary papers to destroy the petrol station in Canary Wharf, but the police were unintentionally not notified. When the explosives were detonated, police responded as if a petrol station had really exploded and sent fire brigades (although there was already one present). Danny Boyle finally resolved the manner after several hours.
Funded by the British Film Council, which in itself is funded by the National Lottery. As a result of this, there are prominent advertisements for the National Lottery throughout the film, for example in the newsagents near the beginning of the film and in the supermarket (in the background while Jim and Frank are discussing whisky).
The first scene of an empty London was filmed early on a weekday morning. The director Danny Boyle organized for good-looking women to stop the traffic from entering the empty streets as he rightly reckoned the drivers would be more co-operative with good looking girls.
If you did actually travel 27 miles North East of Manchester as stated in the movie, you would end up in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
Goofs
A soldier radios in “…, I repeat, …”. In UK signals, “repeat” is reserved for artillery fire; correct would have been “I say again”.
The M602 is not 26 miles northeast of Manchester, as was mentioned in the looping radio broadcast from the army. It runs east-west, straight from the centre of Manchester, for about 5 miles.
When Jim is walking through London, there is a shot of Big Ben and the clock face reads 8:15, however in the next shot the clock appears to read 6:40.
In the night sequences at the mansion, despite torrential rain, thunder and lightning, a full moon is seen shining brightly in a clear sky over the mansion.
When they are leaving London they stop off at the super market for food, when inside the store it is clearly illuminated by artificial lighting although there is meant to be no power in the city then when they leave there is a shot from outside which shows the shop in complete darkness.
The fighter jet in the end is supposed to belong to the Finnish Air Force. However, it has Royal Air Force markings, not Finnish.
Box Office Info In USA
Budget $8,000,000
Opening Weekend $10,061,858 (29 June 2003)
Gross $45,063,889
Filming Locations
Bank, London, England, UK
Blackwall Tunnel, London, England, UK
Bowness Knot, Cumbria, England, UK
Canary Wharf Underground Station, Canary Wharf, Isle of Dogs, London, England, UK
Canary Wharf, Isle of Dogs, London, England, UK
Carland Cross Wind Farm, Mitchell, Cornwall, England, UK
Ennerdale Water, Lake District, Cumbria, England, UK
Haymarket, St. James’s, London, England, UK
Horse Guard’s Parade, St. James’s, London, England, UK
Isle of Dogs, London, England, UK
London, England, UK
Manchester, Greater Manchester, England, UK
Piccadilly Circus, Piccadilly, London, England, UK
Schwabenpark, Kaisersbach-Gmeinweiler, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
South Quay DLR Station, Isle of Dogs, London, England, UK
St. Thomas’ Hospital, Lambeth, London, England, UK (exteriors)
Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Tottenham Court Road, Bloomsbury, London, England, UK
Trafalgar Park, Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, UK
Trafalgar Square, St James’s, London, England, UK
Trellick Tower, Golborne Road, Notting Hill, London, England, UK
Waverley Abbey, Hampshire, England, UK
Westminster Bridge, Westminster, London, England, UK