Trap (2024 film)

Trap is an upcoming American psychological thriller film written, directed, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan. The film stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills, and Alison Pill. It is scheduled to be released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on August 2, 2024.

Premise
Cooper, a serial killer dubbed "The Butcher", joins his daughter at a concert for pop star Lady Raven, an event he realizes is a trap set by police to catch him.

Cast

 * Josh Hartnett as Cooper
 * Ariel Donoghue as Riley
 * Saleka Shyamalan as Lady Raven
 * Hayley Mills
 * Alison Pill
 * Marnie McPhail
 * Vanessa Smythe
 * Kid Cudi

Production
M. Night Shyamalan's Trap was inspired in part by Operation Flagship, a sting operation in which disguised law enforcement arrested 101 wanted fugitives at a convention center, having invited them under the pretense of gifting them free NFL tickets. The film marks Shyamalan's departure from Universal Pictures, which distributed five consecutive films of his, starting with The Visit in 2015. In October 2022, Universal announced the then-untitled film. The title was revealed in February 2023, as Shyamalan entered a first-look deal with competing studio Warner Bros. Pictures. He produced with Marc Bienstock and Ashwin Rajan, and pitched the film as setting The Silence of the Lambs (1991) at a Taylor Swift concert, in reference to her Eras Tour.

Principal photography was scheduled to begin in Cincinnati, Ohio, in August 2023, where it would have received over $9 million in tax credits from the state to film there. Production eventually relocated to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Despite being distributed by a major studio, it was granted, on September 18, 2023, an interim agreement to film during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike due to Shyamalan independently financing his own films. Under the working title Good Grades, filming reportedly occurred from October 16 to December 8, 2023. The film's pop concert venue, known as "Tanaka Arena," was filmed inside FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, with Rogers Centre used as the venue's exterior. The production obtained access to the 20,000-seat arena for two months because it was undergoing renovations.

Shyamalan's daughter, Saleka, stars as Lady Raven, the singer whose concert the characters attend. She wrote fourteen songs for the film, designed diegetically to match the action onscreen, while her father wrote the script. Saleka previously collaborated with her father by contributing to the soundtracks for the film Old (2021) and the series Servant. Shyamalan was inspired to incorporate musical elements by visiting Saleka on tour and by Prince's musical film Purple Rain (1984). Saleka also noted that they grew up watching Bollywood cinema, in which music often plays a key role in the storytelling. She described Trap as a "Shyamalan American version of a Bollywood movie that is grounded and the songs make sense — not necessarily a musical, but completely music-centric." Cora Kozaris was the choreographer for the songs performed on stage in the film. Trap was released the same year as The Watchers, the directorial debut of Saleka's sister, Ishana Night Shyamalan; a poster for The Watchers appears in the background of a scene in Trap. Saleka and Ishana Shyamalan worked on their respective films on their family's property in Pennsylvania. Saleka operated in a recording studio while Ishana mixed her film next door. Herdís Stefánsdóttir composed the score independently from Saleka. Columbia Records will release the soundtrack.

Release
Trap is scheduled to be released in the United States by Warner Bros. Pictures on August 2, 2024. It is the second film of Shyamalan's to be distributed by the studio after Lady in the Water (2006), and marks the filmmaker's departure from Universal Pictures, which distributed five consecutive films of his. Universal initially scheduled the film's release for April 5, 2024. In 2023, Warner Bros. acquired and pushed the film to August 2, 2024. In 2024, they postponed it to August 9, and later brought it forward a week to August 2 again.