Following his haunting thriller, Old, divisive director M. Night Shyamalan has now revealed the title of his mysterious next project, Knock at the Cabin. The filmmaker has also confirmed the release date for the movie, revealing that it will arrive in theaters on February 3, 2023, which notably makes its full release date 2/3/23, which could perhaps offer a clue as to the some of the themes behind Knock at the Cabin.
Knock At The Cabin. 2.3.23 https://t.co/llM7kv8w68
— Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) October 14, 2021
In typical M. Night Shyamalan fashion, nothing else is known about Knock at the Cabin, but one could assume that the movie will involve a structure, most likely a cabin, in its plot. Please, hold your applause for the excellent detective skills. The release date is also an interesting one, with the teaser focused solely on the mirrored numbers, which will surely have something to do with the movie’s central mystery. Perhaps a time loop or parallel universe will come into play? Let the theories commence.
While next to nothing is known about the plot itself, Shyamalan has previously revealed some behind-the-scenes details regarding the project. Writing on social media earlier this year, the director revealed that he had completed the most recent draft of “the next one,” calling it “Super tight. Under a 100 pages.”
After fumbling with his move towards bigger blockbusters with the likes of The Last Airbender and After Earth, Shyamalan has seemingly returned to the smaller, more intimate movies of his earlier output, and this is something that the director is clearly enjoying. “I’m loving this approach from The Visit on where they’re minimal, contained, I own them, we take big tonal risks and try to hit that note of absurd-but-grounded, that dark humor moment and deal with some complicated things and not necessarily take the audience where they’re comfortable, both during or even at the end,” Shyamalan shared back in 2019.
Old continued this trend, and follows a small group of people who discover an idyllic cove filled with rock pools and sandy shore, encircled by green, densely vegetated cliffs. Unfortunately, the picturesque spot is not what it appears to be, and suddenly everybody starts growing older every half hour, reducing their entire lives into a single day. While Old received mixed reviews from critics, it’s hard not to be curious about what Shyamalan plans to do next.
Knock at the Cabin will be the second movie in M. Night Shyamalan’s two-movie deal with Universal Pictures, the first being Old. The filmmaker has teased that the movies could be connected in some way, and while they may not be straight-forward sequels, there could be something continual in their themes, particularly the exploration of time.
“I just had two movie ideas I felt very strongly about,” Shyamalan revealed. “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.” Well, what do you think Knock at the Cabin will be about?