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By Annabelle: Creation writer and director.
Image credit: Supermassive Games/PlayStation
Developer Supermassive’s acclaimed PS4 cinematic horror game Until Dawn is being turned into a movie by the writer and director of 2017 horror hit Annabelle: Creation.
Until Dawn, if you’re unfamiliar, released for PS4 back in 2015, delivering an interactive spin on the teen slasher genre – with a cast including Rami Malek and Hayden Panettiere – where players could influence who lived and who died through the choices they made along its branching narrative. It was a cheesy, atmospheric, and hugely enjoyable romp, establishing the template Supermassive would later revisit in its recent Dark Pictures Anthology series.
Given that much of Until Dawn’s appeal came from the novelty of navigating through a whole bunch of knowingly trope-y slasher conventions (who hasn’t pondered if they’d have what it takes to survive a horror movie and become Final Girl), it’s perhaps an unexpected choice for a big screen adaptation – but the film’s being described as a “R-rated love letter to the horror genre”, suggesting it’ll retain some of the meta elements of its inspiration.
That’s according to The Hollywood Reporter, which says Until Dawn is being adapted by screenwriter and producer Gary Dauberman – who has previously penned horror hits It, Annabelle, and The Nun – based on a script by The Invitation’s Blair Butler.
Shazam! and Lights Out director David F. Sandberg has signed on to helm the Until Dawn movie – which is a co-venture between Screen Gems and PlayStation Productions – marking his first horror project since 2017’s Annabelle: Creation.
There’s no indication of when the Until Dawn movie might be aiming to release, but it’ll be joining an increasingly long line-up of PlayStation games that’ve recieved the adaptation treatment for film or TV, with varying degrees of success. Sony’s Uncharted and Gran Turismo movies didn’t exactly dazzle when they launched in 2022 and 2023 respectively, but last year’s nine-episode HBO adaptation of The Last of Us was a huge critical and commercial hit. 2023’s Twisted Metal TV series was also warmly received.
Still to come are big screen adaptations of Ghost of Tsushima, Jack and Daxter, Days Gone, and Gravity Rush, with TV adaptations of God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn also confirmed.
