The newest trailer for divisive director M. Night Shyamalan's Old gives us a further glimpse at the filmmaker latest foray into horror, inviting us to enter the picturesque, secluded beach that harbors a very dark and mysterious secret. Featuring an ensemble cast led by Gael García Bernal, Old sees a mismatched group of strangers suddenly aging rapidly, reducing their entire lives into a single day.
The movie is inspired by the French graphic novel Sandcastle by Pierre Oscar Levy and artist Frederik Peeters, with an insider previously revealing that the Unbreakable director received a copy of the novel for Father's Day and was instantly enamored with the premise. Quickly purchasing the rights to the graphic novel, the storyline is said to have heavily inspired Shyamalan's script for Old.
Centring a group of people on a perfect beach day, or so they thought, the group 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.
Old, which wrapped in November of last year, features an all-star ensemble cast led by Coco and The Motorcycle Diaries star Gael García Bernal as Jack, with Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps as his wife, Kate. Hereditary and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle star Alex Wolff also stars as Mark, Jack and Kate's son. Making up the supporting cast are 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 star Abbey Lee, Jupiter Ascending's Nikki Amuka-Bird, The Father star Rufus Sewell and Lost's Ken Leung.
Old sees M. Night Shyamalan return to the kind of existential horror story that has often served him so well in the past, with the movie no doubt filled to the brim with the kinds of twists and turns that audiences have come to expect from the man behind The Sixth Sense.
Old is just the first 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 to be released in the United States on July 23, 2021.
