David F. Sandberg Talks Expanding Upon Universe Of ‘Until Dawn’ In First-Look Featurette

Sony’s Screen Gems has unveiled a first-look featurette for Until Dawn, its adaptation of the hit video game, directed by David F. Sandberg (Lights Out), which hits theaters April 25.

In the video, released on Tuesday, writer-producer Gary Dauberman reflects on his approach to the adaptation, saying that “as a huge fan of the Until Dawn game and how cinematic it was, I thought a lot about how we could continue the story without just giving the audience the same experience that they got when they were playing.”

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Sandberg notes that while the film has “the same tone and same vibe” as the game, it “expands upon the universe” at the same time. “One of the creative things the game did,” he says, “is that people make different choices and die in different ways. The movie has this mechanic where things start over and they get to try again. Every time they come back to life, it’s like they’re in a new horror genre. To survive, they have to make it until dawn.”

In the R-rated Until Dawn, which takes place one year after Melanie mysteriously disappeared, Melanie’s sister Clover and her friends head into the remote valley where she vanished in search of answers. Exploring an abandoned visitor center, they find themselves stalked by a masked killer and horrifically murdered one by one…only to wake up and find themselves back at the beginning of the same evening. Trapped in the valley, they’re forced to relive the nightmare again and again – only each time the killer threat is different, each more terrifying than the last. Hope dwindling, the group soon realizes they have a limited number of deaths left, and the only way to escape is to survive until dawn.

Developed by Supermassive Games and released in 2015 for the PlayStation 4, the game features motion-capture performances from the likes of Rami Malek and Hayden Panettiere and spurred offshoots including Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, The Inpatient, and The Quarry.

The Until Dawn film stars Ella Rubin, Michael Cimino, Ji-young Yoo, Belmont Cameli, Odessa A’zion, Maia Mitchell and Peter Stormare. Dauberman, who has a first-look deal with Sony, produced alongside Mia Maniscalco for Coin Operated banner, along with Mngata’s Sandberg and Lotta Losten, Vertigo Entertainment’s Roy Lee, and PlayStation Productions’ Asad Qizilbash and Carter Swan. Charles Miller and Hermen Hulst served as EPs.

View the featurette above.

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