One of next summer's most exciting sci-fi blockbusters has been shot on an iPhone

Danny Boyle is sticking to the basics

Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max
(Image credit: Future)
Quick Summary

Danny Boyle's upcoming 28 Years Later has reportedly been shot almost entirely on iPhone 15 Pro handsets. 

The film is aiming for an authentic look, although there's still plenty of kit strapped to the phone. 

It's been revealed that director Danny Boyle's hotly-anticipated thriller 28 Years Later, the latest in his ongoing series of zombie flicks, has been shot almost entirely on iPhone cameras.

The shoot used iPhone 15 Pro Max phones as its principal cameras, apparently, aiming to preserve a look and feel that will ground viewers with the sort of footage and video that they're used to seeing through their own lenses (albeit with a lot more violence and undeath). 

As Wired points out, this is far from the first time that a movie has been shot on iPhone, but it'll certainly be the most high-budget example yet, with a rumoured budget of $75 million. Other examples like Sean Baker's Tangerine were made on a shoestring, to contextualise their choice of camera.

It's also worth pointing out that Boyle and cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle have form on this front – the original 28 Days Later was shot on $4,000 Canon XL-1 cameras that similarly aimed to have a much grittier and more realistic look than normal studio equivalents. Still, even that sort of enthusiast-grade camera pales in comparison to the ubiquity of iPhones nowadays. 

Adding to this, photos of the film's shoots while they were happening this year showed the iPhone 15 Pro Max models hooked up to complex rigs, with a bunch of extra tech added to them, including visibly premium and large lenses.

So, it's not quite going to be the case that you could get your phone out of your pocket and film stuff to the exact same quality as what you'll see when 28 Years Later arrives next year.

Finally, there will also apparently be one other type of innovative camerawork in 28 Years Later – action cameras strapped to literal farm animals. Quite how that'll play out in the final edit will be fascinating to see, as will the overall video presentation given this iPhone revelation.

Max Freeman-Mills

Max is a freelance writer with years of experience in tech and entertainment. He's also a gaming expert, both with the games themselves and in testing accessories and consoles, having flexed that expertise at Pocket-lint as a features editor. He has tested all manner of tech too, from headphones and speakers to apps and software.