As his career has waxed and waned over the preceding decades, there’s been one constant in M. Night Shyamalan‘s career: he loves shooting part of whatever he makes in the Greater Philadelphia area. That’s all about to change because his next film, “Old,” leaves behind the City of Brotherly Love entirely for life on the beach (and a short-lived one too, apparently).
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Shyamalan and tropical idyll look like a mismatch at first glance, but there’s plenty of supernatural menace to the movie’s premise. “Old” follows a group of vacationers who find a dead body on a secluded beach and gradually come to realize something unnatural regarding time and the aging process is afoot.
“Old” stars an impressive international cast including Golden Globe winner Gael García Bernal (Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle), Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), Rufus Sewell (Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle), Ken Leung (Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Jupiter Ascending), Abbey Lee (HBO’s Lovecraft Country), Aaron Pierre (Syfy’s Krypton), Alex Wolff (Hereditary), Embeth Davidtz (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Eliza Scanlen (Little Women), Emun Elliott (Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens), Kathleen Chalfant (Showtime’s The Affair) and Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit).
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Shyamalan’s latest is his first film in a two-movie partnership he agreed to with Universal in October 2019. Shyamalan has the right to write, direct, and produce for both films. That’s a lot of creative control for a director whose career was at its nadir after 2013’s “After Earth.” It looks like the varied acclaim for “Servant,” “Glass,” and “Split” has supplied Shyamalan with a career resurgence.
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Here’s the official synopsis:
This summer, visionary filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan unveils a chilling, mysterious new thriller about a family on a tropical holiday who discover that the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly … reducing their entire lives into a single day.
“Old” is a Blinding Edge Pictures production, directed and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, from his screenplay based on the graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters. The film is also produced by Ashwin Rajan (Glass, AppleTV+’s Servant) and Marc Bienstock (Glass, Split). The film’s executive producer is Steven Schneider.
How will Shyamalan fare in warmer climes compared to Philadelphia? Given his recent track record, “Old” looks to continue the director’s late-career comeback. Find out if it does on July 23, when the movie releases.