Until Dawn film director David F. Sandberg and his production partner, Gary Dauberman have shared the latest adaptation update. They presented the latest trailer to viewers on the second day of IGN FanFest 2025. They discussed with IGN interviewer Tom Jorgensen that Until Dawn will not be adapting the game’s story. Instead, the film will take inspiration from it to create a new canon of teenagers trying to survive a death loop.
Preserving Until Dawn’s Multi-Narrative
Sanberg and Dauberman understood the elements of the original 2015 interactive horror. Until Dawn during its prime brought new life into interactive stories. Instead of controlling one character, Supermassive Games expanded the player’s options to a large cast. This boosted the game’s replayability to discover different paths that could help certain characters survive the Wendigos of Blackwood Mountain.
Sanberg did not feel comfortable changing the game’s multi-narrative story. “[…] Cutting out eight hours of stuff, condensing it into a movie, and removing the interactive stuff wouldn’t been as interesting to me,” he told Jorgensen. Dauberman then adds, “I didn’t want [Until Dawn] to feel as if you’re watching someone else play. […] We still want to be true to the spirit of the game.”
Explaining the Death Loop
According to IGN, Until Dawn’s film adaptation will experience various horror sub-genres. Each teenager has a limited amount of lives to learn how to survive until daylight arrives. Sauberg saw the potential of not knowing all of the hazards working for the film’s plot. “[…] What’s scarier than not knowing what comes the next day? Maybe you’re dealing with a slasher villain one day like, ‘Okay. We know how to deal with that.’ Then the next day, it’s like a supernatural movie. The rules you just learned are tossed out the window.”
In Until Dawn’s second trailer, Dr. Alan Hill, voiced by Peter Stormare, explains to viewers that the teenagers are trapped in a place stuck in time. The friend group realizes they are stuck on the 24th of October each time they die. The movie has reimagined the game’s iconic hourglass as a loop clock. Time rewinds whenever the group loses a life to the creatures, traps, or killers in the woods. Once their lives run out, they will end up dead for good.
First Impressions of Until Dawn’s Film
It’s nice to see Sandberg and Dauberman trying to give respect to Until Dawn’s source material. While the death loop is nothing new to films, using different horror types in the film reminded me of Cabin in the Woods. The 2011 horror parody combined multiple horror tropes into one story with an organization searching for five sacrifices in different countries. The film also gave special rules to explain strange character behaviors such as opening what you shouldn’t.
With Until Dawn’s adaptation, viewers can’t predict who will live and die. These teens show few survival skills to defend themselves. Because their cause of death is randomized, no one is sure what will attack them first. Splitting up and hiding does no favors either for danger will come looking for them until everyone is dead in that cycle. The film is set to release later this spring on April 25th this year.
