‘28 Years Later’ shot on multiple iPhone 15s, becomes most expensive movie ever made on smartphones

Although the shooting of ‘28 Years Later’ has already finished and the movie is in post-production, an interesting detail has come to light. The cameras used in this third installment of Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s saga of the infected were iPhone 15s, making it the most expensive movie ever shot on smartphones, considering the $75 million budget.

‘28 Years Later’ filmed with iPhone 15 smartphones

As revealed by Wired, ‘28 Years Later’ was filmed primarily with several specially adapted Apple iPhone 15s. The specific phone model used is the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which was released in September 2023.

This information was first revealed by a paparazzi who managed to take several snapshots of the shoot. In one of these images, actress Jodie Comer is seen next to what appears to be a very technologically advanced camera, but upon closer inspection, it can be seen that the centerpiece of the camera is a protective block that could fit a cell phone. The use of iPhone 15 phones was confirmed after the fact by several members of the film’s production team.

Of course, as you can see in the photo, they were not shot with the smartphones as they were, but were adapted and equipped with a variety of accessories such as DSLR lenses and a depth-of-field adapter. Of course, the iPhone 15s were not the only cameras used, as it was also revealed that some sequences were shot with GoPro-type cameras attached to farm animals to get unique results.

This was a conscious decision, both technologically and stylistically; ‘28 Days Later’ (2002) was shot on a Canon XL-1 digital camera, which was very advanced for its time and one of the first Hollywood films to be shot on this equipment. It was decided to sacrifice the final quality of the movie to give it a unique aesthetic, as this camera did not have the same image quality as others of the time, offering a relatively low resolution of 480p instead of the 720p that others had.

While ‘28 Years Later’ is not aiming for low resolution, the decision to use iPhones instead of traditional cameras suggests that they wanted to give the movie a unique personality, with a look that is very different from other major Hollywood productions. Other feature films shot with iPhones include Tangerine (2015) and Unsane (2018), but they were relatively low-budget films. In other words, the huge budget of ‘28 Years Later’ makes it the most expensive movie ever made with any kind of smartphone.