In the film, a crash landing leaves teenager Kitai Raige (Jaden Smith) and his legendary father Cypher (Will Smith) stranded on Earth, 1,000 years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape. With Cypher critically injured, Kitai must embark on a perilous journey to signal for help, facing uncharted terrain, evolved animal species that now rule the planet, and an unstoppable alien creature that escaped during the crash. Father and son must learn to work together and trust one another if they want any chance of returning home.
“In our earliest days as cave-people, fear of the unknown was really important – fear could keep us safe. Fear could keep you alive,” explains Shyamalan. “ But now, we’ll fear a new job or a new relationship, because we don’t know what’s going to happen – and that’s not necessarily a good thing. Playing with that in a movie is a fun thing, and in this movie, it’s about a father teaching a son how to overcome that. It’s a wonderful lesson, because if you can learn how to control your fear of the unknown, you can do anything.”
After writing the story for “After Earth,” Will Smith – also a producer of the film – would turn over the screenwriting reins to Gary Whitta and Shyamalan. Smith called Shyamalan on the latter’s birthday, and Shyamalan told Smith how great Jaden Smith was in “The Karate Kid.” Will Smith said, “Well, we do have a movie idea in the works…” and they took off from there.
“Night puts everything into the movie,” says Jaden Smith, noting that Shyamalan’s style of direction is, often, sleight of hand: “He’ll get you caught up in the story – you’ll be invested in the relationship between this father and his son – and then – bam! Something pops up. I love the way he shoots – the long shots, not too many cuts, capturing the emotion of the scene without saying what’s really going on, and leaving you in the audience time to wonder.”
Opening across the Philippines on June 5, “After Earth” is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. Visit https://www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.