Writer-director Ishana Night Shyamalan makes her feature debut with The Watchers, based on the novel by A.M. Shine. Starring Dakota Fanning , the film follows a young artist who becomes lost in the woods and encounters three strangers trapped in the wilderness by a mysterious force. The Watchers is inspired by Irish folklore, and Shyamalan spoke to io9 about how mythology sparked her imagination from a young age. “I was very into both Greek and Egyptian mythology.
“So he’s really allowed my sisters and I to be right with him during all those things. And then as we got older, we started kind of playing a role in that as well. He would ask us about casting and I’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m interested in that girl,’ and him kind of saying, ‘Yeah, well, why? What about her interests you?’ So I think he was kind of subliminally, just by way of sort of sharing in his experience, teaching me from a young age.