In a build up to the first trailer, which is expected to be released during the Super Bowl, director M. Night Shyamalan has teased his upcoming horror venture, Old. While the footage does not show much, it certainly hints at the kind of intimate atmosphere that Shyamalan loves, and manages to keep things mysterious…which Shyamalan loves even more. The director has captioned the footage with a simple “5…,” likely counting down to the release of the full trailer in five days’ time.
— M. Night Shyamalan (@MNightShyamalan) February 2, 2021
While the plot of the new M. Night Shyamalan movie Old remains something of a mystery, it will reportedly be inspired by the French graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and artist Frederik Peeters. Last year, an insider revealed that the Unbreakable director received a copy of the novel for Father’s Day and was instantly enamoured with the premise. Quickly purchasing the rights to the graphic novel, the storyline is said to have heavily inspired the script for Old.
The plot for Old will therefore likely follow that of Sandcastle, which centers on a group of people on a perfect beach day… or so they thought. The group is made up of a family, a young couple, a few tourists, and a refugee who all end up in the same secluded, idyllic cove filled with rock pools and sandy shore, encircled by green, densely vegetated cliffs. But this utopia hides a dark secret. First there is the dead body of a woman found floating in the crystal-clear water. Then there is the odd fact that all the children are aging rapidly. Soon everybody is growing older every half hour and there doesn’t seem to be any way out of the cove.
Old, which wrapped in November of last year, features an all-star ensemble cast led by Coco and The Motorcycle Diaries star Gael Garc&ía Bernal, who features in the trailer tease. Bernal will star alongside the likes of Hereditary and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle star Alex Wolff, Little Women and Sharp Objects star Eliza Scanlen, Jojo Rabbit and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ Thomasin McKenzie, Krypton star Aaron Pierre, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Neon Demon star Abbey Lee, Jupiter Ascending’s Nikki Amuka-Bird, Lost’s Ken Leung, and Vicky Krieps from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread.
Old is part of M. Night Shyamalan’s recent two-movie deal with Universal Pictures, with another as-yet-untitled project currently slated for a February 2023 release date. Shyamalan has discussed the deal in the past, suggesting that all the movies could be linked. “I just had two movie ideas I felt very strongly about,” Shyamalan revealed.
“For me, there are ideas and they’re in journals sometimes and they don’t quite have the meat yet or whatever that thing is that makes it so I’m ready to commit two years of my life to making this-to writing and directing this-some of those ideas don’t have that yet. They have to gestate a little bit. But there were two ideas where right away I was thinking about making them. And, interesting enough, there might be a third thing that came to me that might end up going in between these two. So there might be three.” Old is scheduled for release on July 23, 2021. This comes to us courtesy of M Night Shyamalan’s Official Twitter account.