Guardians of the Galaxy is typically credited with Dave Bautista’s rise to cinematic stardom, but his short turn in Blade Runner 2049 is what drew attention to the actor’s dramatic chops. Thanks to 2049 (and its short film Nowhere to Run), Bautista’s since gone on to show up in pretty good genre work like Dune and Army of the Dead, and it’s also the reason why he’s joining M. Night Shyamalan’s next movie.
While talking up the current season of Apple TV’s Servant, Shyamalan admitted how watching the 2017 flick inspired the director to cast Bautista for his upcoming horror film Knock at the Cabin. “He was still in a way that was really powerful,” said Shyamalan. “There’s a type of stillness where you’re not doing nothing; you’re doing everything and you’re still....Dave was embodying all of this philosophy in that scene.” He went on to describe himself as “taken in” by the performance, admitting first that the actor’s size made him “unusual” to see. But when the script for Cabin was finished, he knew that he needed a guy to “play this giant human being and do the stillness. So I asked Dave.”
Details on the film are currently scarce, but Shyamalan did say that writing the film was perhaps the quickest of his projects to write, beating out 2002's Signs. “I don’t know if that’s too much to do with the engine, the movement of it, but we’ll see,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it so much, but it’s very emotional.”
Knock at the Cabin is slated for a February 3, 2023 release. It’ll be one of several films for next year that features Bautista in its cast—along with Guardians of the Galaxy’s third installment in May that same year, he’s expected to return in October 2023's second part of Dune. For 2022, his big projects are Knives Out 2 and Thor: Love & Thunder.
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