Following the release of a poster and title for twist-loving director M. Night Shyamalan's next movie, the storyline of Old had remained something of a mystery...until now. It is being reported that Old will be inspired by the French graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and artist Frederik Peeters. An insider has revealed that the Unbreakable director received a copy of Sandcastle for Father's Day and was instantly enamoured with the premise. Quickly purchasing the rights to the graphic novel, the storyline is said to have inspired the script for his upcoming feature.

The plot for Sandcastle reads as follows; "It's a perfect beach day, or so thought the family, young couple, a few tourists, and a refugee who all end up in the same secluded, idyllic cove filled with rock pools and sandy shore, encircled by green, densely vegetated cliffs. But this utopia hides a dark secret. First there is the dead body of a woman found floating in the crystal-clear water. Then there is the odd fact that all the children are aging rapidly. Soon everybody is growing older every half hour and there doesn't seem to be any way out of the cove."

This appears to match everything that had been rumored about the direction of Old, and certainly matches the haunting Old poster that was revealed by M. Night Shyamalan recently. The graphic novel is described as an existential horror story about the inevitability of death that plays like a Kafka-esque episode of The Twilight Zone or Lost, which many will agree sounds the perfect story for Shyamalan to tackle. While the source material does not reveal why people have begun to age rapidly, Sandcastle is said to be the inspiration behind Old, meaning there will likely be a few changes between the graphic novel and the big screen venture.

Old recently cast Coco and The Motorcycle Diaries star Gael García Bernal, with the Mexican actor all set to lead the impressive ensemble cast. Bernal joins the likes of Hereditary and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle star Alex Wolff, Little Women and Sharp Objects star Eliza Scanlen, Jojo Rabbit and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies' Thomasin McKenzie, Krypton star Aaron Pierre, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Neon Demon actress Abbey Lee, Jupiter Ascending star Nikki Amuka-Bird, Lost's Ken Leung, and Vicky Krieps from Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread.

Old is part of M. Night Shyamalan's new two-movie deal with Universal Pictures, with another as-yet-untitled project currently slated for a February 2023 release date. Shyamalan has discussed the deal in the past, suggesting that all the movies could perhaps be linked in some way.

"I just had two movie ideas I felt very strongly about," Shyamalan said. "For me, there are ideas and they're in journals sometimes and they don't quite have the meat yet or whatever that thing is that makes it so I'm ready to commit two years of my life to making this-to writing and directing this-some of those ideas don't have that yet. They have to gestate a little bit. But there were two ideas where right away I was thinking about making them. And, interesting enough, there might be a third thing that came to me that might end up going in between these two. So there might be three." Old is scheduled for release on July 23, 2021. This comes to us from Collider.