The amazing experience of watching a scary movie in a crowded theater is one that has not been on the table for nearly a year now. There's nothing like being a part of a collective scream when a killer strikes, but the on-going pandemic has temporarily taken that away from us. There is hope, however, that things will return to some semblance of normal soon – and horror legend Stephen King, for one, is keeping his fingers crossed that will happen before the release of M. Night Shyamalan's Old this summer.
The first trailer for the upcoming thriller premiered during the Super Bowl the weekend before last, and in his reaction to it the author of The Stand, The Shining, Carrie and many more classics went a step further than just mentioning his anticipation for its release. King further noted that he is staying optimistic that he will have the opportunity to watch Old on the big screen. Taking to his personal Twitter account, he wrote,
Based on the graphic novel "Sandcastle" by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederick Peeters, Old tells the story of a small group of people that sees an ordinary day at the beach turn absolutely horrifying. While things appear to be normal at first, they slowly discover that there is something about the area that is causing them to age rapidly, and if they don't act fast it could mean their deaths. The film features an excellent cast including Gael Garcia Bernal, Thomasin McKenzie, Rufus Sewell, Embeth Davidtz, and Alex Wolff.
You can check out the Stephen King-hyped Super Bowl trailer for Old below:
Stephen King has not only never been shy about sharing his thoughts on new films and television shows, but in the last few months he has also been a proud advocate for the big screen experience. The theater industry has been greatly struggling since last March, but the author has tried to contribute via attendance – though he most definitely wasn't happy with what he witnessed when he went to go see a movie last October. He didn't mince words in his reaction, writing, "I feel terrible for the film industry."
We definitely agree with Stephen King in regards to the building hunger to see a movie on the big screen again with a bunch of people, and while nothing is certain at present, there is no harm in keeping fingers crossed that M. Night Shyamalan's Old could be enjoyed as originally intended. Universal Pictures currently has the film scheduled to be released on July 23, and while it's possible that the studio could push that date if theaters aren't ready to reopen, it's also possible that they will apply the same strategy that they used for The Croods: A New Age and News Of The World: put the feature on the big screen where possible, and then take advantage of the contractually agreed upon PVOD window that would have it available online less than three weeks later.
For now Old is still a long ways away, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
