Until Dawn Writer/Producer Talks Honoring the Video Game, Easter Eggs, and More

You can blame Gary Dauberman for fuelling those nightmares you have at bedtime. The writer/producer/director expanded The Conjuring Universe by penning all three chapters of the Annabelle series, which chronicled the porcelain doll’s reign of terror. The third installment, Annabelle Comes Home, also served as his directorial debut. And after the demonic nun Valak was introduced in The Conjuring 2, Dauberman fleshed out her origin story for The Nun.

As if that wasn’t impressive enough, he adapted Stephen King’s intimidating novel IT for the big screen, pitting a band of misfit kids against a supernatural alien clown that torments the town of Derry, Maine every 27 years. The film became a massive blockbuster smash, raking in over $700 million globally. Dauberman wrote the sequel, 2019’s IT CHAPTER TWO, which concluded the epic fight of good versus evil.

In 2024, Dauberman penned and directed Salem’s Lot. Based on King’s 1975 novel, the flick centered on a small town slowly being overrun by vampires. But his latest endeavor is writing and producing the recent movie adaptation of the horror video game, Until Dawn. The film finds five young adults stuck in a time loop where they perish in grotesque and gruesome fashion daily. Their only chance to escape the cycle is to survive until dawn.

ComicBook caught up with Dauberman to talk Until Dawn’s gnarly violent deaths, its Easter eggs, his take on the upcoming live-action TV series Gargoyles, the remake of the Korean zombie horror Train to Busan, and more.

ComicBook: As somebody who has penned several movies based on Stephen King novels, what were some of the challenges of translating the video game Until Dawn into a feature film? Since this isn’t a beat-for-beat adaptation, which parts of Until Dawn’s DNA absolutely had to make it into the movie? And, on the flip side, which elements were you sad that didn’t make it?

Gary Dauberman: Blair [Butler] and I co-wrote it and we found it challenging because we made the decision early on not to just do a direct adaptation of what the video game is. We wanted to really continue the franchise and explore another story set within that world. So, you are trying to come up with something new, while still trying to stick to the spirit of what worked in the game and what we loved about the game, which is a lot of things, and really live up to the high standard the game set. I found it challenging.

With Stephen King stuff, the challenge becomes there is so much good stuff, you can’t do it all in the two hours, so it becomes gritting your teeth as you have to cut this or cut that. This is a different experience. You have to come up with something whole cloth, like a new story or a new chapter, for the overall story of what the Until franchise hopefully will be.

The biggest link between the game and the movie is Dr. Hill. I have always seen him as the face of the franchise, in a weird way, like the character that Tony Todd plays in Final Destination. He’s this person who seems to be operating behind the curtain. I think there is more story to tell with his character. That was more of the direct link. The more abstract idea was really the experience Blair and I had playing the game and the thrills and how scary it was, how cinematic it was, and the character dynamics. That was the stuff we still tried to retain from the game into the movie with a whole cast of characters.

Gamers love dissecting movies for Easter eggs. Where should they be looking in Until Dawn? What were some of your favorites that you snuck in?

There’s a good scene where it’s a bunch of research that’s happening in the basement. I think there are a couple of great Easter eggs in there that harken back to the game itself. What we found interesting was we had a bunch of fans of the game [working] on the movie, and even the production designer put stuff in that [director] David [F. Sandberg] and I weren’t quite aware of until they pointed it out. So, we were doing our own game of looking for nods. I think the fans of the game will have a lot of fun looking at things.

There are a couple of bread crumbs, I think, where the story could go, that were dropped in there. That’s one of the fun parts, trying to jam what you can into there but still make it feel organic. It doesn’t feel like it is coming out of nowhere. There are a couple of locations that are named after characters that were in the first game that I wasn’t aware of. There are a couple of news articles in the basement.

IT. The Nun. Annabelle. All rated R. It feels like Until Dawn takes this to a whole new level. How hardcore did you go with Until Dawn? Is there a death sequence that even gave you nightmares and why?

It is definitely one of the gorier movies I have done. The violence is very visceral. A lot of The Conjuring movies are rated R for really intense scares, but there is no bad language, and it’s the intensity of the scares. This was rated R for that, but also because of the blood. There is a lot of blood. There are a lot of great kills. There are five characters and we kill them many, many times, so there is a high body count. That takes it to a whole new level, just on its own. Even with the supernatural movies, you are not killing off one by one. There’s almost a slasher element to Until Dawn. In fact, there is a slasher sequence in it, but even beyond it, you are still killing characters one by one each time in a variety of different ways. It goes to the extreme.

There is a body horror sequence I really love. Body horror, generally, gives me the ick in a great way. I really enjoyed that. What happens is pretty explosive. It looks great and I love that David, very early on, discussed doing as much as he could practically. That pays off in a huge way in most of these sequences. It feels scarier because the actors are reacting to something that is right in front of them. It helps elevate the scares. But that body horror gives me the heebie-jeebies.

How much are you laying the groundwork for sequels? What other avenues of this franchise would you like to explore?

Broadly, you give thought to it. It’s really about making the first movie good. If the first movie is good, there are always threads you can pull at to help expand the story. I don’t go into it thinking, “In the sequel, we do this.” I don’t like to count my chickens before they hatch. I just want to make this movie good and, hopefully, audiences will respond to it, that they want to see something else. We certainly have ideas and stuff we weren’t able to get into this one that would work in a sequel.

Speaking of adaptations, we’ve referenced your Stephen King adaptations. Which of his works will you be pursuing next? Is there one book that feels untouchable?

No, I am not pursuing any other Stephen King novels. Not for any other reason, but I feel like there’s not one sitting out there that is not set up somewhere else. And is there one that is untouchable? That is such a good question. I don’t think so. Do you think so?

I’m waiting for someone to tackle Insomnia.

I don’t know how you would do that visually. Didn’t someone try to adapt that? It’s really trippy. It would be tough. It would be challenging. I feel someone did a script for it years ago, that I had read. I don’t think that’s untouchable, but nobody has done it. The one I have been thinking about a lot is Joe Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box. When that first came out, I was like, “Oh, my God. This guy is like Stephen King.” I had no idea it was his son. Right out of the gate, I liked going into his stuff not knowing he was related to King. But I don’t know why nobody has adapted that book.

You’ve written multiple Conjuring Universe films and Until Dawn reunites you with Annabelle: Creation director David Sandberg. Did you two have conversations about the demon doll’s future?

That is more of a discussion that New Line has and James Wan has. Certainly, you get brought into the conversation a little bit, but we are not the ones who have the ability to say, “Let’s go make another one.” I hope they do. It’s such a great franchise. We didn’t really discuss too much other than how much fun we had making Creation, which is why we love working together. That is why we wanted to reunite. Both of us had such a great experience on that movie.

Gargoyles is another property with a devoted following. What was the thought process of developing the cartoon into a live-action reboot?

I feel like we have the animated series already. The cartoon is so good. It’s so good. That’s what we fell in love with. I think it lends itself to a really cool live-action version. I think it will be challenging. We are talking to some great people. We are still keeping that darkness to it. I’m excited to see the animated stuff come to life.

Are you adapting a specific narrative from the TV series or is this an original storyline or an origin story?

I can’t get into specifics on that one … yet, but I am dying to. I think Disney would kill me. I am such a fan of the show and there is so much good in it. I am trying to bring it back to your conversation about me adapting Stephen King stuff and me adapting Until Dawn, and how [in] one, you have to invent stuff whole cloth and the other you don’t. I will say, that if you are a fan of the show, you will be very happy with how I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel with that one.

You also have Last Train to New York, the remake of Train to Busan, on your plate. What about the Big Apple setting allows you to put a unique spin on the zombie outbreak? Which iconic sequence from the original are you excited to tackle and have the audience see?

I grew up in Philly, so there’s that corridor. I’ve taken the train a bunch of times, from DC to New York. It’s impressive, the humanity. The original is perfect. You do look at it about how can we change it a little bit? It was a train route I knew. In Korea, the public transportation is so much different than how it is treated here. That is a script I am really proud of.

I am not going to give specifics. There’s a couple of scenes. Really, it’s the emotion of the first one, which I am trying to capture. Yes, there’s some direct one-to-one, but the emotion and characters of the first one are so good in that. You don’t want to mess with that. They did it so brilliantly. I am trying to stick to that stuff the most.

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Until Dawn is in theaters now.