Precious little was known about Academy Award nominated writer/director M. Night Shyamalan‘s new movie Old until its first look arrived during the Super Bowl this weekend. As the trailer revealed, the film tells the story of a family and other travelers that make their way to a secluded beach and discover that for some reason they’re all aging rapidly. One character seemingly begins the movie as a six year old boy and ages up into Hereditary star Alex Wolff (who is 23 years old in real life). Rumors had previously flown about that Shyamalan’s film was an adaptation of a French graphic novel and in a new interview the filmmaker confirmed that fact.
“It’s based on this graphic novel that I was given from my daughters,” Shyamalan told Entertainment Weekly. “I read it, and the premise was so powerful, of these people that went to this beach and their experience that happens on that day in the beach… I thought it was very frightening and emotional, and the ideas just started coming, and I tracked down the owner, and the person that wrote it. It was just a beautiful thing, and kind of touching, that it came from my daughters, this story about getting older very, very quick.”
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The comic is actually titled Sandcastle and hails from writer Pierre Oscar Lévy and artist Frederik Peeters. Though primarily known for writing his features based on his own ideas, Shyamalan has previously dabbled in adaptation including penning the script for the live-action Stuart Little movie and the frequently maligned The Last Airbender feature film.
In the same interview Shyamalan opened up about shooting his new movie which was done in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was so precarious to make the film at that time, and I decided to do it because that cast, I didn’t want to lose anyone, I didn’t want to lose one person, so I decided to go for it,” he said. “It was risky to shoot it at that moment because it was hurricane season in the Caribbean. In fact, our sets got destroyed by a hurricane, and we built them up again, and we were very lucky that second time they stayed up.”
Also included in that cast are Eliza Scanlen (Little Women), Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit), Aaron Pierre (Krypton), Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), and Gael García Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle).
Old is currently set to land in theaters on July 23, 2021
