Slingshot Director Calls New Film "Distant Cousin" to His Stephen King Classic 1408

Mikael Håfström says the character dynamic stays the same regardless of what closed room you lock somebody in.

By Russ Burlingame

Mikael Håfström, whose new film Slingshot takes Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne to outer space, says that the movie has a little more in common with 1408 -- his 2007 film based on the Stephen King story of the same name. In that movie, John Cusack plays a writer who is trapped in a supposedly-haunted room of a hotel, and it's a rumination on solitude and the ways that it can drive you mad, especially if you're unable to leave or find human companionship. Slingshot does something similar -- although with more than one person and a space station, obviously that dynamic is a little different, particularly visually.

Speaking with ComicBook, Håfström specifically addressed the comparisons, calling the two "distant cousins" and breaking down what appeals to him about this knid of story.

"You can learn a lot about the human mind when you put someone in isolation, unfortunately," Håfström told ComicBook. "What drew me to 1408 was that contained arena -- one character in the room, John Cusack in this case. You can see 1408 in two different ways; you can see it as a film about the man in a hotel room from Hell, but you can also see it as a film about a man slowly going insane in a hotel room, and you are welcome as an audience member to do that for yourself. It was a little bit the same with Slingshot. I call it I call it a distant cousin, because it is in many ways. It's a contained arena. In this case, it's a few guys in the spaceship with Casey Affleck being the main character who is also slowly losing his grip on reality -- or is he? What's going on, really? Also, from a filmmaking point of view to the challenge to do something that is in such an isolated space, to try to make things happening and to make it exciting for the audience to watch and find new angles. You can imagine, after a couple of weeks in that room -- in that hotel room or in the space ship."

Here's the official synopsis for the movie:

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A psychological thriller starring Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne, Slingshot follows an elite trio of astronauts aboard a years-long, possibly compromised mission to Saturn's moon Titan. As the team gears up for a highly dangerous slingshot maneuver that will either catapult them to Titan or into deep space, it becomes increasingly difficult for one astronaut to maintain his grip on reality.

Slingshot arrives in theaters on Friday.

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