For the launch of the 28 Years Later trailer, our goal was clear: make heads roll.
Leading up to its release, audiences hadn’t seen the post–Rage Virus society in nearly two decades. To build on that anticipation, our challenge was to create a trailer countdown that didn’t just offer a first glimpse, but invited fans to start piecing the chilling truth together for themselves.
Before the release of the first trailer, die-hard franchise fans were already theorizing and dissecting every detail they could find online. They were hungry for any hint about the setting and plot of the new film.
With the biohazard as a clear symbol of the return, we knew fans would immediately recognize the blending of what had come before with the new horrors in store. Ultimately, our goal was to offer a breadcrumb trail wrapped in an immersive and unsettling visual experience.
The video, paired with the looping, ambient sounds of the infected and occasional snippets of the “Boots” poem, featured 3D-crafted, individually animated red skulls. They dropped into the screen and gradually rolled into place over time, eventually creating the full biohazard symbol made entirely out of skulls by the time the full 28 hours had elapsed.
At strategic intervals, flash frames using film footage gave fans more than a first look — it gave them a key to the mystery. Each flash added to a sequence of morse code that led to rageleaks.net, a mysterious website where fans could discover redacted government reports and surveillance on the island.
Once 28 hours had elapsed, the video immediately transitioned into the trailer itself.
On YouTube, the unlisted countdown video was picked up and shared by major outlets like IMDB with over 200K views and 300+ comments. The teaser trailer also had incredible engagement on TikTok, with 5.1M views and over 4K comments. At the same time, multiple Reddit threads decoding the morse code and sharing files from RageLeaks.net garnered hundreds of comments.
