M. Night Shyamalan is back with a brand new horror film. From its star-studded cast to its
strange premise and sooner-than-expected release date, here's everything we know about Old so far.
Movies don't appear out of thin air, of course, and M. Night Shyamalan actually
began laying the official groundwork for "Old" as early as 2019 — and may have read the source
material that inspired the film way back in 2017. In September 2019, it was announced
that Shyamalan had partnered up with studio Universal Pictures for two more feature films.
The films, both described as thrillers, were at the time slated for release on February 26,
2021 and February 17, 2023, but no additional information was shared publicly at the time.
M. Night Shyamalan has amassed a talented bunch of actors for the film. "Phantom Thread"
actress Vicky Krieps and "Mozart in the Jungle" actor Gael García Bernal play Prisca and Guy,
the couple who first notice the beach's bizarre effects when their young son Trent
quickly turns into a fully-grown man. Trent is played by Alex Wolff,
who you may know from "Hereditary." "Jojo Rabbit" star Thomasin McKenzie
will also appear as the older version of Maddox, Prisca and Guy's daughter and Trent's sister.
Additionally, Embeth Davidtz, probably best known to the masses as Miss Honey from "Matilda," and
"Man in the High Castle"'s Rufus Sewell play a married couple who are among the group
affected by the creepy side effects of this holiday destination. "The Devil All the Time"
star Eliza Scanlen is also part of the "Old" cast, playing yet another child rapidly aged up.
For the upcoming film, "Lost" alum Ken Leung returns to the big screen
for the first time since 2015's "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."
With a cast in place and a green light for production flashing, the "Old" team could begin
filming — yes, even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Luckily for "Old," the situation regarding the
novel coronavirus had somewhat settled down from its initial worldwide surge in the early
months of 2020 by the time principal photography was looking to begin in September of that year.
Many movie and television show productions that were forced to suspend filming
indefinitely beginning in March and April 2020 got the cameras rolling once again in
the early autumn months, so it was prime time for "Old" to start shooting as well.
Shyamalan took to Twitter on September 26, 2020 to announce that filming had begun. That day was also
the first time anyone in the public learned that film was titled "Old." He wrote in the caption,
"Feels like a miracle that I am standing here
shooting the first shot of my new film. It's called Old."
Getting started on filming "Old" may have felt miraculous, but it wasn't always blue skies
and sunshine — and we mean that literally. "Old" was shot in the Dominican Republic,
which is quite a far leap from Shyamalan's hometown of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
where he's shot most of his previous movies. Speaking during a panel at the
2021 Tribeca Film Festival, M. Night Shyamalan got candid about some of
the obstacles he ran into while filming "Old," even in such a beautiful location.
"We were the first movie to shoot and cast in the pandemic and the way we
were making a movie was very new. I was making up the rules because
I was the first one. ... We didn't have a single positive case, which is fantastic,
even if it's very scary. But because of this we had to push from May into hurricane season."
Shyamalan continued,
"There was a hurricane [before filming began]
and it took the sets and just destroyed them. We decided to build again but the biggest
concern was that the beach had eroded. There was no beach for our beach movie."
Thankfully, "part of the beach came back" on the first day of shooting. But because
of the complex nature of the film's story, another issue was keeping a tight schedule--
juggling tons of different actors on the set each day,
and regularly sending actors to and from hair and makeup.
"[The characters are] aging and it's one day in the movie — so if an actor
was playing Alex [Wolff's] character young, they would be in the morning,
then another would be in the daytime, and then there'd be another actor later.
There was all these prosthetics, and it was a very complicated thing."
Actor Alex Wolff, who moderated the Tribeca Film Festival panel,
said it felt like "kismet" to be filming a movie about time stopping during an
era of history where a pandemic has made time feel unreal.
Hurricanes, complicated schedules, and prosthetics be darned, "Old" wrapped
production on November 15, 2020, less than two months after filming started. Shyamalan tweeted,
"Wrapped production on @oldthemovie. It was an incredible experience. Beyond grateful
to the people of the Dominican Republic who were so caring & welcoming. It is one of the
most beautiful countries filled with the sweetest people. Thinking of you as I head back to Philly,"
Before filming even began, though, Universal Pictures announced that
"Old" — then one of Shyamalan's two untitled thrillers — wouldn't debut on February 23,
2021 as intended. Instead, it would launch on July 23. The Super Bowl teaser for "Old" confirms the
July 23 release date and the film is currently on schedule to arrive in theaters on that day.
As for when "Old" will be available to stream from home, there's been no word just yet,
but it definitely seems like the type of movie that would perform well as a rental.
On the same day that M. Night Shyamalan announced the start of filming, Collider ran an exclusive
report revealing both the basic premise of "Old" and the graphic novel that inspired it:
"Sandcastle," written by Pierre Oscar Lévy and illustrated by Frederik Peeters.
In a tweet posted on June 24, 2017, Shymalan shared a photo of six graphic novels and
comics spread out on a table. He captioned it, quote, "Next up to read to inspire
#Glass writing." One of the written works seen in the photo was "Sandcastle."According
to an insider close to Collider, someone gifted Shyamlan "Sandcastle" for Father's Day,
and after reading it, he reached out to the appropriate people and bought the
screen rights to the work. While "Sandcastle" may have had some sort of impact on Shyamalan's 2019
feature "Glass," it actually ended up spurring the filmmaker to create an entirely new movie.
"Old" sees a family trapped on a secluded beach as everyone begins to age at a terrifying rate.
The group quickly start to lose their sanity as they no longer recognize their
own selves — and the film even uses a dash of body-horror for good measure,
as a surprise pregnancy catches a young woman off guard in a truly disturbing fashion.
The footage of "Old" shown at the 2021 Super Bowl shows members of the group searching for answers
across the beach, with shots of Alex Wolff and Thomasin McKenzie's characters investigating
something in a cave. With Shyamalan's infamous love of shocking third-act revelations,
it'll be interesting to see why the horrifying phenomenon is happening to this specific group
of people. One line of dialogue even suggests that it's being done to them by someone or something:
"We're here for a reason."
Meanwhile, "Sandcastle" centers around 13 people trapped on a beach who begin unraveling
a sister secret about time. "Old" isn't fully based off "Sandcastle," just inspired by it,
and the graphic novel doesn't offer much explanation behind the horrifying events.
Instead, it's more of an analysis of the human condition. Back in 2013,
Peeters told Comic Book Resources that a shocking twist was originally part of the ending but
was scrapped because it, quote, "would have destroyed the frightening dimension of the book."
Perhaps viewers will see Lévy's original ending on the big screen? Well, maybe not.
According to M. Night Shyamalan himself, he's still working on the ending of "Old"
as of late June 2021. At the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival, the filmmaker described "Old" as being
"subversive" and even "inappropriate," then dropped the bombshell that he's
tinkering with the film's ending to ensure the story is left on just the right note.
"I'm deciding on the minor note — how to end on a minor note,"
Another one of Shyamalan's movies that ends in such a way is "Unbreakable," the 2000
superhero thriller starring Bruce Willis as the titular unbreakable man David Dunn
and Samuel L. Jackson as the secretly nefarious Elijah Price, who's revealed to be the big bad.
Shyamalan is hoping to replicate the feeling of that reveal from "Unbreakable" in the ending
of "Old," hence why he's still adjusting it a month out from release. Shyamalan added that,
"'Unbreakable' ends on a kind of a dip,
right? He goes to the dark note, that minor note at the end. The guy you thought was the
best friend is the villain. ... The minor note sticks to you forever."
As is par for the course with any M. Night Shyamalan film,
many different theories about "Old" have surfaced online as curious movie
fans try to predict what the whole thing is really about.
One theory is that the parents who are stuck on the beach are suffering from dementia and
it's affecting their perception of time and reality. Reddit user u/TheDumbestTimeline was
one of many who posited this idea, and it actually holds some weight.
Shyamalan's own father has dementia. The filmmaker said during the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival,
"My father's very old right now. He has dementia. He comes and goes."
Shyamalan has implemented dementia as a storytelling device in 2015's "The
Visit," however, so as plausible as this theory seems, one might be able
to rule it out on the possible basis of Shyamalan wanting to avoid repetition.
Another "Old" theory is that we're dealing with good old-fashioned time loop.
One Twitter user noted that both she and her husband subscribe to this theory.
It's a basic one, but it makes a lot of sense.
On the other side, perhaps there's some sort of dangerous entity controlling time on the island
— more specifically, the beach and the water — and is punishing the humans for whatever reason.
One Redditor thinks that, quote, "the twist will be that time was moving faster yet their
brains were not." Another user on Reddit believes that something along these lines will play out:
"The [ocean] was stuck in time but there were
pockets in space time that were kinda still keeping up through
'regular' time so they aged 'faster' when they just actually caught up with time."
Or maybe none of that will ring true, and Shyamalan will subvert
expectations by not including a third-act twist like he usually does. Only time will tell.
"It's a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma!"
Whatever ends up happening in "Old," twist ending or no twist ending,
one thing is for certain: The movie will be unlike anything you've seen
before — from M. Night Shyamalan or any other film director. At least,
that's what Shyamalan has promised is the case. He said at the Tribeca Film Festival,
"No one has ever seen anything like it — in its tone and the way it's just, I mean,
it's like nothing else."
Of course, there's a big chance that Shyamalan has an inflated opinion of "Old" since it's a movie
he wrote, directed, and produced, but there's little denying that hype for the film is real.
Many online have expressed their excitement to see "Old" once it arrives in theaters on July 23,
and countless fans have stated that even if "Old" doesn't live up to all their expectations,
they're just eager to find out what's truly going on in the story,
how it all comes together, and what it all means.
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