#M. Night Shyamalan’s Next Movie Lands a Summer 2021 Release Date at Universal

Divisive director M. Night Shyamalan’s mysterious new movie has now set a release date, with Universal Pictures announcing that the Split director’s as-yet-untitled movie will be released on July 23, 2021. As his movies usually are, Shyamalan’s next venture is shrouded in so much mystery that it barely even exists yet, with plot details and even the movie’s title currently being unknown.

One thing we do know though is the principal cast, which is composed of Hereditary and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle star Alex Wolff, Little Women and Sharp Objects star Eliza Scanlen, Jojo Rabbit and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies’ Thomasin McKenzie, Krypton star Aaron Pierre, and Vicky Krieps from Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread all in talks for the project.

Since the news of their involvement, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Neon Demon actress Abbey Lee, Jupiter Ascending star Nikki Amuka-Bird and Lost’s Ken Leung have also boarded the cast of latest top-secret movie for M. Night Shyamalan.

Again, as his movies usually are, Shyamalan’s untitled movie will be written, directed, and produced by the man himself. Though plot details remain unknown, expect something draped in a creepy atmosphere that likely has a twist somewhere towards the end.

This movie will be part of Shyamalan’s new two-movie deal with Universal Pictures, with another as-yet-untitled project currently slated for a February 2023 release date. Shyamalan has discussed the deal in the past, expressing his desire for taking risks and commending the studio for allowing him to do so.

“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. That’s all mitigated because we’re working with a respectable number and I feel like I’m being a good partner to my distributors. I like that because it allows me to iterate really fast in the making of these stories, so those films follow that architecture of approach and process. Even if it’s tricking myself into being more dangerous, it’s working because when I think about these three films that I’m thinking about-all weird and dark-I think that they speak to each other a little bit.”

Shyamalan also spoke about the ideas he has for these two upcoming movies, even teasing a potential third, suggesting that all of the movies could perhaps be linked in some way.

“I just had two movie ideas I felt very strongly about. 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.”

We look forward to seeing whether Shyamalan will excite or disappoint. The director’s work has been criticized for a different reason recently, with a petition calling for Netflix to remove the movie Split, citing its misrepresentation of people diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. This comes to us from Universal Pictures.

Topics: M. Night Shyamalan Fun Sci Fi Movie