Award-winning author Paul Tremblay is on a roll, following the release of his recent chiller The Pallbearers Club.
One of his recent novels The Cabin At The End of the World is set for an adaptation from none other than M Night Shyamalan. We caught up with Paul to talk about the adaptation and what’s next for him.
As a writer did you envision The Cabin At The End of the World to become a film or TV series?
I didn’t think about any sort of adaptation until after the book was completed. After that, yeah, I daydreamed that it could make a good film. While writing it I imagined large portions of the book were part of a closed-room kind of play. When my film agent shopped for it in the Autumn of 2017, I was too late in mentioning I would like a crack at the screenplay. But also, I’d never written a screenplay before, so did I know about writing a screenplay. Not much more than I know now?
While released in 2018, the book really captures the claustrophobia and fear of the height of the pandemic, do you find this interpretation accurate?
That’s interesting. I hadn’t considered how the book would be read post-2020. When I wrote it in 2016/2017, I actively tried to replicate the anxieties of our politics now, and more specifically to America, what it felt like living in the early or new days of Trumplandia. The novel plays with apocalyptic ideas and what makes it ambiguous is that like in the novel, anytime we turn on the television or look at a news notification on our phone, it feels like we’re witnessing an apocalypse, which makes the threat or promise of a supernatural one kind of moot.
When did you first hear about M. Night Shyamalan’s interest in the project?
Summer of 2019 I’d heard he’d the screenplay and was intrigued. But that was about it for a while and he went off to make his film, OLD, which is another adaptation, this one of a French graphic novel called Sandcastles. Once the fall of 2021 rolled around, I was told he was official and was rewriting the screenplay, and things then moved quick.
Like many of us I take it you are a fan of his films?
I’ve enjoyed a number of his films and admire his visual style. Upon release, like everyone else, The Sixth Sense blew me away. Unbreakable, Signs, and Split are other favourites.
What can we expect from the adaptation, is this fairly faithful or will it take some chances?
I can’t say too much, or anything really about that. Sorry.
Can you give us an update on the adaptation of A Head Full Of Ghosts?
I really can’t give out specific information, sorry. I can say this: It came very close to filming in 2020 but has since had to start over. There is a new director and screenplay and momentum seem to be building again.
I really enjoyed your recent release The Pallbearer’s Club; do you enjoy coming-of-age stories?
Thank you!
Yes, I do, but with the obvious caveat when they’re done well. It’s too easy for a coming-of-age story to succumb to sentimentality and nostalgia. Some recent favourites include Our Share of Night (partly a coming-of-age story) by Marina Enriquez and The Saturday Night Ghost Club by Craig Davidson.
What’s next on your agenda?
My short story collection The Beast You Are comes out next summer. It’ll feature an original novella with anthropomorphic animals. Why not right? I’m about 100 pages into my next novel currently and hope to turn that in May 2023, and have it out in summer 2024, universe willing.
Look out for news on The Knock at the Cabin soon.
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