If M. Night Shyamalan’s career can bounce back from The Happening and After Earth, it was probably folly to assume that COVID-19 (and the subsequent near-complete shutdown of the global film industry) was going to be able to keep him down for long. Hence the not entirely surprising news that Shyamalan is working on his next film, which we now know, courtesy of a Twitter post today, is apparently called Old.
The Glass director also released the first poster for the movie, which is apparently about a bunch of people trapped in an hourglass, having to cope with more people falling on top of them—truly, a spine-chilling thought, if you’re someone who’s deathly afraid of hourglasses. It’s also possible that the poster is more metaphorical, and Shyamalan is actually just confronting our in-grown fear of aging—something he’s touched on in his films before, most notably in his unexpected 2015 comeback The Visit, which derives much of its sense of unease from the feeling of being trapped in the unfamiliar routine of aging grandparents who are decidedly stuck in their ways.
Shyamalan started filming on the movie today, which is how we know the film will also apparently take place in a field, so it won’t be entirely confined to Hourglass World. There’s no word yet on when Old might eventually make its way to theaters, but as the movie’s tagline promises, we have to assume it’ll only be a matter of time (until you see the M. Night Shyamalan movie about people being trapped in a giant hourglass, that is).
Update, 5:22 p.m.: Collider has dug up a few more bits of info on Old, including the fact that it’s apparently inspired by Pierre Oscar Levy and Frederik Peeters graphic novel Sandcastle, about a group of 13 people who become trapped on a beach (and rapidly start aging) after discovering a dead body there. Collider also notes that Shyamalan has announced the cast for the film, including Gael García Bernal, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Aaron Pierre, Alex Wolff, Vicky Krieps, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Rufus Sewell, Embeth Davidtz, and Emun Elliott.
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Why was The Visit considered a comeback? The twist hinges entirely on the mother being a neglectful idiot who doesn’t bother to give her kids a picture of what their grandparents look like. Also, there is no way you can make shoving a poop-filled diaper into somebody’s face scary.
TBF, a lot of horror movies hinge on central characters being idiots.
Let’s all go to the old abandoned library to research whether you’re right. We should split up to cover more ground.
I’ll be the one wearing heels!
TBF, a lot of horror movies hinge on the audience being idiots.
No, that was a pretty big fucking lift.“I’m going to send you to visit your grandparents…who you’ve never met…and make sure you’ve got no idea what they look like.”
Because after you make The Last Airbender and After Earth, even your next bowel movement qualifies as a comeback.
After Earth at least looks great. Last Airbender is just so bad on every level. I remember reading that he made the movie because his daughter was a fan and I can only assume he hates his daughter.
Because, despite some notable plotholes, it was actually fun to watch. Unlike pretty much anything else he’s made.
I enjoyed Split way more than I expected. It’s absurd and mean-spirited without being nihilistic, which is a tough balance.
Agreed I should have said “anything he’d done before”. I think he’s gained an appreciation for the audience actually having fun, and not just being surprised by a twist, since his earlier work.
I liked Glass way more than I expected. (SPOILERS) I like that it was more of a deconstruction of the superhero origin story than a showdown between the two supers. It set you up for that but ended up being an odd sort of team-up. Maybe my favorite Shyamalan ending since The Sixth Sense.
I tried twice and could never get past that kid rapping. Having my uterus scraped is more fun than that.
$98 million on a $5 million budget and mixed-to-positive reviews is the obvious answer.
I get the sentiment, cause its a mediocre film and didn’t do bonzo at the box office, but before The Visit Shyamalan’s career was effectively dead. After The Happening studios weren’t touching him for anymore writer/director projects, which lead him to trying his hand at other roles, producing The Devil for another director, taking on a popular pre-existing property, and just straight up directing someone else’s script. After the increasing string of failures in every capacity he was kryptonite. He had a new Bruce Willis project that he was trying to shop around and even with the enticement of that re-collaboration studios weren’t coming anywhere near him. The Visit was very much a hail mary by him, he made it on his own taking out a loan on his house to self-fund it. And even with a finished and funded film to shop around studios were still passing on it. It was a combination of him re-cutting the film and Blumhouse having gained legit credibility with their low-budget horror approach that finally got the film into theaters. It did well enough to keep Shyalaman working, and I think established that his name recognition will probably always be enough to keep him being a safe bet for Blumhouse’s low-budget medium/high rewards approach to film making.
Also, there is no way you can make shoving a poop-filled diaper into somebody’s face scary. Are you joking? That’s inherently scary.
WTF? You don’t find the idea of someone smearing a poop filled diaper on your face scary?
Working in aged care psychiatry (and regular psychiatry), bodily fluids in that context are never not inherently terrifying!
The Visit was well-done, spooky and funny. Then he burned all that goodwill with the total trash of Glass, one of the worst of a career filled with baffling flops.
Had an absolutely visceral reaction to that diaper when I saw that movie for the first time.
Surprise twist: it’s actually Young!
I have never been able to take Shamamalamalan seriously after seeing that bit. I enjoyed “The Sixth Sense,” but I’m unable to rewatch all of it because “what a twiiiist!” pops into my head every couple of minutes.
Which is ridiculous, a dumb Adult Swim sketch totally coloring my view of an artist, but I guess it kinda tracks since after watching “Awesome Show” I can’t see Paul Rudd in anything without Celery Man popping into my head.
The twist is it’s a biopic about Gary Oldman.
Marketing will probably change it to “The New Adventures of Old.”
Starring a car named Christine!!
He also released the theme song.
Naw, that’s the theme song of the sequel.
I knew what that was before even clicking the link.
The twist is that it’s disappointing.
pfft, I saw that twist coming miles away
You were dead inside the whole time!
I say this as someone who nearly walked out of Glass but I respect how Shyamalan has been able to make his last few movies by financing them himself.
M Night Shyamalan is Jason Blum?
Shyamalan took out a $5 million loan on his estate to make The Visit. He did something similar to make Split. He used the earnings from both and put up more collateral to make Glass.https://www.cbr.com/glass-m-night-shyamalan-self-financed/
I really hated Glass on almost every level. The sheer idea that he had both Unbreakable and Split and yet he just completely wasted the finisher is baffling to me.
I nearly skipped out during the puddle scene.
Not to mention how you spend an entire movie vaguely trying to gaslight the protagonists that super powers are a mental disorder, even though we’ve spent literally two movies showing how the super powers work.
And David’s arc inexplicably rehashes Unbreakable. You mean to tell me this guy who has proven to himself and to his son that he’s special, who’s gone around in a parka knocking heads for years can be made to doubt his abilities?
Coming 2021: Bruce Willis is Old
i really liked “the visit.” so shoot me.
the rap at the end came about as close to ruining the movie as it possibly could have
Anything on Servant S2?
“Old”: so how most people feel about this guy’s shtick at this point?
Everyone has their point with his oeuvre. For me it was the shitty hubris of “Lady in the Water.” Unforgivable.
I remember walking out after the big “twist” in The Village. I hated it so much, I wished there was a way I could have walked out twice. I want to burn the original print and salt the earth with it.
I’d been skipping his movies for quite awhile before that, but a family member insisted on seeing LitW because they thought it looked interesting, and I wanted to see Giamatti as a lead role.
Still regret dipping back into the Shyama-well.
My god, that movie is bad. The Happening often gets the focus as his low point, but nope. Just a total wet towel of a movie.
Same. I’m pretty sure I never even finished watching it because I felt I was getting dumber the longer it went on, while at the same time insulting my diminishing IQ.
For whatever reason I still rent his dumb movies. I skipped The Last Airbender and After Earth, but I got back on the Shyamalan train after the Visit, which was a lot of fun. Split and Glass were both deeply stupid in their own ways, but throughout his career Shyamalan has maintained a talent for knowing where to put the camera. I also have a soft spot for artists who because of their own hubris don’t know their own limitations.
his apple tv+ series servant was shockingly engrossing. the downside, of course, is that it’s on apple tv+
Wow.Maybe now my two Fred Peeters original pages will be worth something on eBay 🙂
As long as this one isn’t linked to Unbreakable. (M. Night ruined my young adulthood.)
>> a group of 13 people who become trapped on a beach (and rapidly start aging) after discovering a dead body there.If you change “beach” to “starship”, it describes the plot of an old Star Trek episode.
Ehh, “The Village” was essentially an old Twilight Zone episode, “One Hundred Yards Over the Rim.”… I may be cynical, but I think a lot of screenwriters do that, i.e., take something old and retool it into a modern take just enough so that’s it’s not plagiarism.I’d be curious if anyone else has examples of that.
I don’t think many people realize that Escape from LA has a very similar plot to Escape from NY…
Disturbia is a solid example. It’s as close to a straight-up remake of Rear Window as it gets, and it doesn’t acknowledge Hitchcock’s film (or Cornell Woolrich’s original story) in any capacity.
true, but “nosey person spies on neighbour and witnesses strange occurrence” has sort of become a genre of its own
Change “beach” to “abandoned tanker” and you’d be describing an episode of ‘The X-Files’ that featured some of the worst old-age makeup ever put to screen.
Change “abandoned tanker” to “line at a camping gear store” and it’d be a plot to an episode of American Dad!. Although the B-story where Roger uses a fake dance competition as a way to get Francine to help steal the hair off the head of his dead ex-wife to fashion into a wig is much better than the aging story.
This describes the progression of the Star Trek movies.
Yikes, a body horror movie about rapid aging? This sounds exactly like the kind of movie I never want to watch (even if it’s good).
The twist is they are really young!
Wow, I spent way too long studying the image at the top of the article, thinking, “Hmmm…kind of creepy and unsettling. Definitely an effective character in a psychological horror movie.”Hey, M. Night, everything OK? Blink twice for yes. Or just try to have a less dead, empty look in your eyes.
Nice font
Nice cast.