Old: Release Date, Cast And More

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What a twist! This summer, M. Night Shyamalan is back with a new thriller – Old, a movie that takes Shyamalan from his familiar Philadelphia stomping grounds to a mysterious, secluded beach. But there will be no fun in the sun here, folks. Just an inexplicable series of mysteries that a group of unlucky characters will have to deal with. Below, learn everything you need to know about Old before it arrives in theaters.

The Old release date is set for July 23, 2021. It was initially set for a February 2021 release but got pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film is destined for a theatrical release first. But it's worth noting that Universal, the studio distributing Old, signed a deal with big theater chain AMC to give their titles an exclusive 17-day theatrical window. That means after 17 days, Universal could drop the film onto digital platforms. But we'll have to wait and see if that actually happens.

Old is the latest thriller from M. Night Shyamalan, the filmmaker who rose to fame with The Sixth Sense. Shyamalan enjoyed an acclaimed career – at first. But eventually, audiences and critics started to turn on him, taking issue with his propensity for twist endings. However, the filmmaker has been experiencing something of a resurgence lately, kicked off by his fun found-footage flick The Visit and his thriller Split.

Unlike most of his other movies, Old is inspired by someone else's source material. Specifically, the graphic novel Sandcastle, written by Pierre Oscar Levy and illustrated by Frederik Peeters. Here's the synopsis for Sandcastle:

It's a perfect beach day, or so thought the family, young couple, a few tourists, and a refugee who all end up in the same secluded, idyllic cove filled with rock pools and sandy shore, encircled by green, densely vegetated cliffs.

But this utopia hides a dark secret.

First there is the dead body of a woman found floating in the crystal-clear water.

Then there is the odd fact that all the children are aging rapidly. Soon everybody is growing older?every half hour? and there doesn't seem to be any way out of the cove. Levy's dramatic storytelling works seamlessly with Peeters's sinister art to create a profoundly disturbing and fantastical mystery.

Here's the Old synopsis:

This summer, visionary filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan unveils a chilling, mysterious new thriller about a family on a tropical holiday who discover that the secluded beach where they are relaxing for a few hours is somehow causing them to age rapidly...reducing their entire lives into a single day.

Yep, it's pretty vague! That's by design, of course – the less we know, the more surprising the film may be. Still, if you're looking for more info, check out the Sandcastle synopsis above. While Old isn't a straight adaptation of that work, it's still drawing ideas from it, so there might be some clues.

As I've said multiple times in this post (pay attention!), the director of Old is M. Night Shyamalan. Shyamalan also wrote the script. Old is produced by Ashwin Rajan (Glass, AppleTV+'s Servant) and Marc Bienstock (Glass, Split). The film's executive producer is Steven Schneider. Cinematographer is Mike Gioulakis, who worked on It Follows, Under the Silver Lake, Glass, and Us. Trevor Gureckis, who does the music for the Shyamalan-produced series Servant, handles the score.

The film is rated PG-13 for "Strong violence, disturbing images, suggestive content, partial nudity and brief strong language."

Old stars Gael García Bernal (Mozart in the Jungle), Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread), Rufus Sewell (The Man in the High Castle), Ken Leung (Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Jupiter Ascending), Abbey Lee (Lovecraft Country), Aaron Pierre (Krypton), Alex Wolff (Hereditary), Embeth Davidtz (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Eliza Scanlen (Little Women), Emun Elliott (Star Wars: Episode VII—The Force Awakens), Kathleen Chalfant (The Affair) and Thomasin McKenzie (Jojo Rabbit).