Making Until Dawn Was More Challenging Than Either Shazam Film

Until Dawn, Sony’s adaptation of Supermassive Games’ breakout 2015 interactive horror game, is out today. According to director David F. Sandberg, it was more complex to make than his previous films, including Shazam and its sequel.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, Sandberg recalled his excitement over returning to the horror genre after wrapping up Shazam! Fury of the Gods. As THR notes, the film was plagued by last-minute production snafus. Chief among them were the 11th-hour rewrites for its mid-credit scene, which required him to remotely direct Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman cameo—a cameo he wasn’t aware would be used in the film’s marketing, rather than serving as a surprise for folks who stuck around after the film ended.

Put that in combination with the uncertainty the Shazam films existed in when James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios, and him missing the film’s premiere due to covid, and you’ve got a pretty stressful film production memory he was happy to have in the rearview. 

But despite all that, Sandberg says it was even more challenging to return to his horror roots and make Until Dawn. 

“Until Dawn was a more complicated movie than any of the Shazam! movies. It was very hard to make this movie, and it was a very ambitious movie for the time and the money we had,” Sandberg told THR. “But I was so eager to do horror again, and this was a dream come true in that I got to do lots of full-on R-rated kills and gore and special effects and special makeup and monsters. I’ve been wanting to do all of these things since I was a little kid. So that was very welcomed, but it was a challenge, for sure.”

While fans of the horror game had mixed feelings about Sandberg’s adaptation shifting from its original premise—in which clueless teens face ominous totems and a terrifying Wendigo—to a Happy Death Day-style horror tribute, Sandberg explained he and the film’s screenwriter, The Conjuring universe veteran Gary Dauberman, wanted to make the film distinct from the game. 

“After Shazam 2, it had been a few years, and I really wanted to do horror again. Gary then got in touch to say that he wrote this script with Blair Butler that’s based on the game Until Dawn, and he sent it over. And I was like, ‘Well, this is awesome because it has every horror genre. I don’t even have to choose. I’ll get to do slasher, supernatural, body horror, monster and found footage,’” Sandberg said. “It had everything in one movie, which is what really drew me to it.”

He continued. “I also loved the fact that they didn’t try to just do the game again, because the game was already so cinematic. It plays pretty much like a movie that you’re a part of, so how do you do that in movie form and not have it be compared unfavorably? You’re just never going to live up to the game. So I love that they expanded upon the universe that was established in the game rather than trying to do the same thing that everyone has already played and seen.”

Going off online scuttlebutt, critics are not particularly fond of Until Dawn‘s horror grab bag premise, with the film currently holding a 62% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Fans will be able to see for themselves whether Sandberg and Dauberman’s efforts in adapting Until Dawn to the screen proved a winning combination, because the film is now in theaters.

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