This coming weekend is a big one at the box office for Apple, with F1 The Movie debuting. But there was a film release this past weekend that’s especially significant to Apple too. 28 Years Later, the top new premiere at the US box office, was shot primarily on iPhone.
28 Years Later is a summer box office success, and it was shot on iPhone
Over the weekend, US moviegoers had two main new options:
- Elio, the latest Pixar animated film
- and 28 Years Later, a sequel to the horror flick 28 Days Later
It turns out, horror was a hit.
Box office reporting shows 28 Years Later netting $30 million over the weekend, the top number for a new premiere. It was only beat by How to Train Your Dragon’s second weekend for top overall performer.
28 Years Later’s success is especially noteworthy because the film, despite being a major Hollywood summer flick, was shot primarily on the iPhone.
Rather than using the kind of expensive cameras normally reserved for big-budget Hollywood hits, 28 Years Later employed a large batch of iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 15 Pro models.
Sometimes up to 20 iPhones were used at once in a single custom rig.
Director Danny Boyle chose to use the iPhone because he felt it would portray the realism he sought to achieve. It also came with other benefits, per an IndieWire interview:
“It’s very light, it’s cheap, and it allowed us to go to places that were very remote and bore very little evidence of human presence for many, many, many years,”
The actors seem to have had a great experience. Aaron Taylor-Johnson told Mashable’s Kristy Puchko:
“When someone puts an iPhone very close, it’s a bit intrusive. You feel kind of vulnerable, and you can’t hide. There’s a quality about it that just shows everything, and it meant we had to feel very present in the moment…You got used to it very quickly, and it became such a great environment to work around.”
Though early reporting indicated the film was shot entirely on iPhone, Boyle clarifies that they did use some other cameras for certain shots. But the vast majority of filming happened on iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models.
Did you see 28 Years Later, and could you tell it was shot on an iPhone? Let us know in the comments.
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