M. Night Shyamalan’s next producing project, DEVIL
After the critical and box office bustitude of M. Night Shyamalan’s last two directorial outings (THE HAPPENING, LADY IN THE WATER), taking on projects that don’t involve his actual helming might be a good idea. His next directing project, THE LAST AIRBENDER, will be released in July of 2010, and I’m still very on the fence about it. At this point, my interest level is at a low point, but I do find the teaser trailer to be visually interesting. In any case, Shyamalan has opened up his own independent production company, Ghost House Pictures, to make one horror film a year for the next three years. Ghost House’s first outing, DEVIL, starts shooting next week.
The incredible team at Slash Film did some seriously great digging this weekend to get to the real meat of the story. The simple logline for DEVIL is, “A group of people are trapped in an elevator, and one of them is the devil.” Oh, my God, how big is the elevator? Wait, how big is the group? I am getting claustrophobic just thinking about this.
Hit the jump to learn more about DEVIL (including some spoilers).
What the Slash Filmers ultimately found was that one of their own readers had previously posted some notes on the script (HERE BE SPOILERS):
“Devil is basically a supernatural thriller set inside of an office building. There are some people stuck in an elevator, and one of them is not who they say they are (*cough* it’s in the title *caugh*)…There is also a security guard and a policeman. The security guard is trying to convince the policeman to get them out of the elevator. He is also trying to convince the policeman that he is the chosen one to save the people.”
Slash Film and some of their other commenters rightly started poking around to find that patented Shyamalan twist – surely, if we have a DEVIL, we’ve got to have an angel, too, and that ties right back into the concept of “the chosen one.”
Shyamalan is credited with the story for DEVIL, which seems to be right up his alley. The script itself has been penned by Brian Nelson, who previously wrote 30 DAYS OF NIGHT and HARD CANDY. The film is being directed by the Dowdle brothers, Drew and John Erick. This will be Drew’s first directorial outing, though he previously wrote and produced QUARANTINE and THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES, both directed by John Erick.
The cast currently includes Chris Messina (AWAY WE GO), Bojana Novakovic (DRAG ME TO HELL, the upcoming EDGE OF DARKNESS), Bokeem Woodbine (RAY), Geoffrey Arend (GARDEN STATE, (500) DAYS OF SUMMER), Caroline Dhavernas (HOLLYWOODLAND), and Jacob Vargas (DEATH RACE). Now is the time to choose your devil, then go back on that idea, choose someone else to be the devil, eventually return to your first guess, and then be wrong anyway.
The film is set for a 2011 release.
Source The Playlist, Slash Film
Commenting Rules: Comments are intended to open up the discussion to our readers about the topics at hand, and as such should be offered with a positive and constructive attitude. If your comment is not relative to the above post or is disrespectful to the authors and readers, we reserve the right to delete it. Continued abuse of our good nature will result in banishment of the offender. Additionally, if you have any burning issues to point out to the GATW crew - typos, corrections, suggestions, or straight-up criticism - please email us instead of commenting here.