M. Night Shyamalan Says People Are Dying To Watch His New Movie
M. Night Shyamalan says people are dying to get into theaters and Knock at the Cabin could be one of those films.
According to SFX Magazine, movie lovers are itching to get back to the theaters to watch awesome films – and filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan thinks his new movie Knock at the Cabin could be one of them.
The famed director said about folks heading back to theaters in droves, “Let me be super-clear, audiences are dying to come to movie theatres to see great movies. That’s all there is to it. If you released Home Alone today, it would still be a gigantic hit. If you released Back To The Future today, it’d be gigantic. And I think the industry is starting to see this, after getting distracted by the streamers and the pandemic. There’s nothing like it – a bunch of 500 strangers coming together to watch a story together, to not multitask and commit themselves. It’s just a deeper experience.”
M. Night Shyamalan is not just asking for fans to watch his film, but specifically to watch it in theaters instead of at home, on their tablets or phones. It may be tough to convince people to get back out there and into a crowded theater full of strangers, though.
Movie theaters are one of the businesses that had seen the biggest decrease in clientele since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Even though restrictions have eased and things inside the theater would theoretically be back to normal, people are still choosing to stay home and stream movies on their TV or watch movies on their computers or other devices.
Whether this is an attempt to avoid germs or just because it’s too much work to put on pants and pull the car out of the garage is debatable, but what we do know is that, for the moment, a lot of people still seem to prefer watching movies in the comfort of their own home.
M. Night Shyamalan makes some good points in his impassioned speech about getting back to theaters, though. He’s right that the at-home movie-watching experience is completely different than the in-theater one. At home, you have all your devices and pets and responsibilities to distract you, while at the theater you can just turn everything off and focus only on the screen and the moment.
“Do I want you watching Knock at the Cabin on a treadmill with your iPad?” M. Night Shyamalan asks, before reiterating: “No, I don’t.” He doesn’t want viewers to miss out on the feeling of watching a film with hundreds of other people and hearing their reactions to the scary parts or their quietly whispered theories about what might happen next. M. Night Shyamalan wants the movie to be an experience – one that is best partaken in a community setting.
M. Night Shyamalan directed Knock at the Cabin, which is based on a novel by Paul G. Tremblay titled The Cabin at the End of the World. And he also wrote the screenplay, which he adapted from an original draft by Michael Sherman and Steve Desmond.
The story follows a young girl who goes on a vacation with her parents to a remote cabin in the woods (uh oh), only to be taken hostage by four strangers. The girl and her parents then have to decide whether to believe these terrifying strangers when they tell them that they must make a gut-wrenching choice in order to stave off the apocalypse.
M. Night Shyamalan’s psychological thriller stars Dave Bautista as the leader of the hostage-takers. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Bautista caught Shyamalan’s attention when he appeared in Blade Runner 2049. “He was still in a way that was powerful,” he explained.
Other featured actors include Jonathan Groff, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Rupert Grint, Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn, and Ben Aldridge.
Knock at the Cabin was the fastest script M. Night Shyamalan has ever written, which bodes well for viewers: if the writer was that excited to get things down on paper, it must be exciting to watch as well.
Just remember to watch in theaters, though, unless you want to invoke the wrath of M. Night Shyamalan!
