With the release of Knock at the Cabin just around the corner, director M Night Shyamalan has let Digital Spy in on the secrets of his adaptation.
Inspired by the 2018's award-winning novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay, the upcoming horror film doesn't follow the source material religiously.
The Sixth Sense filmmaker was adamant the (pretty bleak) ending of the book be changed in his film.
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"From go, when this book came to me to produce, I felt very strongly that the story can't go the way it was written. It just can't, it can't go that way for me, I have my feelings about that," Shyamalan said.
"So when the book came back to me and they said, 'Would you be interested?', I said, 'Oh yeah', because I was so taken with the setup and so I said, 'I am gonna do a different version of this book. I won't call the movie the same, the fans of the book can just have that and then this is a different artist, interpreting it differently'."
The director made sure Tremblay was informed of his intentions and gave him a call, only to find out the ending he had in mind had been considered by the novelist, too.
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"I did call Paul and I did tell him what I was gonna do and then he was like, 'I was gonna do that first and then I decided to do this other version', and I was like, 'Great, great, so at least you thought similarly too.'"
Initially set to produce, Shyamalan decided to also direct the apocalyptic horror starring Marvel's Dave Bautista and Servant's Rupert Grint, as well as Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Kristen Cui, and Abby Quinn.
"I think when I feel a compulsion to see what's gonna happen, that I'm not sure what's gonna happen and because I kind of decided to go away from the book in a second half, it was beautiful that process of going, 'I wonder how the characters are going to come to terms with this'," he explained.
"It was really, 'I can't wait to see how the story ends'. I've become addicted to that in my life.
"You just keep on doing the thing that you practise and my daughters – one of them's a filmmaker – I just said, 'You need to wake up and just start telling another story even if nobody's paying you about it'. You get addicted to the character and where it's going and I have to find out."
Much like the book, Knock at the Cabin also sees a family of three being held hostage by four strangers demanding a blood sacrifice to prevent the apocalypse.
It seems as though the film will go down a different path in its second half. While we won't spoil the changes here, you can find out for yourself when Shyamalan's version hits cinemas in just a few days.
Knock at the Cabin is released in cinemas on February 3.
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Stefania is a freelance writer specialising in TV and movies. After graduating from City University, London, she covered LGBTQ+ news and pursued a career in entertainment journalism, with her work appearing in outlets including Little White Lies, The Skinny, Radio Times and Digital Spy.
Her beats are horror films and period dramas, especially if fronted by queer women. She can argue why Scream is the best slasher in four languages (and a half).
Movies Editor, Digital Spy Ian has more than 10 years of movies journalism experience as a writer and editor. Starting out as an intern at trade bible Screen International, he was promoted to report and analyse UK box-office results, as well as carving his own niche with horror movies, attending genre festivals around the world. After moving to Digital Spy, initially as a TV writer, he was nominated for New Digital Talent of the Year at the PPA Digital Awards. He became Movies Editor in 2019, in which role he has interviewed 100s of stars, including Chris Hemsworth, Florence Pugh, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Olivia Colman, become a human encyclopedia for Marvel and appeared as an expert guest on BBC News and on-stage at MCM Comic-Con. Where he can, he continues to push his horror agenda – whether his editor likes it or not.
