With a few movie blockbusters on the horizon, commercial breaks during Super Bowl LV were understandably easy for movie trailer premieres. But an important voice came through: The sixth Sense Director M. Night Shyamalan, whose new film Old debuted his first footage in the big game.
Actor Gael García Beral (Mozart in the jungle) and Vicky Krieps (Phantom thread) the film is supposedly based on Sand castle, a comic book by Pierre Oscar Levy. This story centers on a family’s journey to an idyllic beach and the dark secrets they discover behind its corners. It’s unclear how faithfully Shyamalan’s film adapted the Levy story, but in the trailer we see the director’s beach, family, and horror-thriller roots loyal to a supernatural twist of events.
Old is part of a wave of new films shot under strict guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic. Shyamalan, its cast, and crew began production in the Dominican Republic in October 2020, a first for the director traditionally shooting in his Philadelphia home. And while the bubbly and distancing precautions on set turned the set into a mini-lock, the director kept his family close; Shyamalan’s 21-year-old daughter, Ishana Night Shyamalan, directed the second unit of the film (and later jumped in the director’s chair for season two of M. Night’s Apple TV Plus series servant).
What a turn that makes Old have up your sleeve? We’ll know when the film will (theoretically) be in theaters on July 23rd.
