Movie unit spotted at Washington's Nightingale Hospital amid reports of 28 Years Later filming

What appears to be a large scale unit of vehicles emblazoned with the logo of location support specialists Movie Makers has moved into the grounds of the massive building on the international Advanced Manufacturing Park (IAMP) in Washington, near Nissan Sunderland.

The firm, based near Shepperton Studios in London, is the UK’s biggest provider of location facility vehicles to the film and TV industry.

Reports on social media have linked filming at the site to 28 Years Later, the long-awaited sequel to zombie flicks 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later.

Filming has been under way in the region for several weeks, with locations used including Holy Island, Hexham and County Durham.

The new movie is being short back-to-back with its own sequel (reportedly titled 28 Years Later Part II: The Bone Temple) as part of a trilogy and will see Peaky Blinders star Cillian Murphy reprise his role as Jim from the 2002 original, with writer Alex Garland also returning and 28 Days Later director Danny Boyle helming the first film and The Marvels’ Nia DaCosta taking charge of the second.

Other actors who have signed on include Harry Potter’s Ralph Fiennes, Avengers: Age of Ultron’s Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer, who has reportedly been studying X Factor footage of Cheryl Cole in order to improve her Geordie accent.

The Nightingale Hospital opened in April 2020 in a converted industrial unit on the IAMP, originally intended to house training facilities to boost the region’s role in the electrification of the automotive industry.

Part of the Government’s response to fears of a surge in patent numbers at the height of the Covid pandemic, it had the capacity to treat as many as 460 patients with a staff of up to 2,500.

Speaking ahead of the opening, Martin Wilson, executive lead of NHS Nightingale North East, said: “We’re building this hospital as an insurance policy and hope that it will never be required.”

Thankfully, his hopes proved well-founded, with the swift arrival of a vaccine for the disease ensuring that the Nightingale was never needed for its intended purpose, though it did later serve as a vaccination centre, with more than 220,000 injections given.

In December 2021, it was confirmed the building would close as a hospital in the following April and be marketed as an industrial unit.