FAQ

The residents of the quiet, isolated, 19th century town of Covington, Pennsylvania live "harmoniously" with mysterious creatures who reside in the surrounding woods. Because of a pact they have made, the townspeople do not enter the woods, and the creatures, known as "those we do not speak of", do not enter the village. Following the death of seven-year-old Daniel Nicholson, however, Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix) proposes to pass through the woods in order to seek medical supplies from the outside Towns in hopes of preventing future deaths. The village elders, led by Edward Walker (William Hurt), deny his request, but soon it becomes apparent that the creatures are displeased and that the safety of the village may be threatened.

The Village is based on a screenplay, originally titled "The Woods", by India-born filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, who also directed the film.

The Village was filmed in two open fields three miles south of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, in a place called Cossart. An entire town was built in one field. Half of those buildings had complete interiors. The other field contained trailers, equipment, and a large temporary warehouse that contained duplicate interior sets for some of the buildings. All of the structures were torn down one month before the movie was released and the land was restored to open countryside. The movie also had other filming locations: Centerville, Delaware—Fall 2003 filming location of the "Ivy bumps into a fence"; Pedricktown, New Jersey—Fall 2003 filming location of the "Ivy almost gets run over by a truck" stunt scene and the "truck driver stops at a gas station to get the lowdown on the village", and Spring 2004 filming location of the "Ivy meets some rangers" scene; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—Location where still shots were taken of the "clinic members".

Andrew (Wyeth) was the main inspiration for the look of the movie," explains Shyamalan. "In fact, for a long time I was talking to Disney about whether we could get the rights to one of his pictures for the poster. The grays, and the minimalism, and the light - that's all from Andrew," he reports. "And there's not a lot on the walls... He painted a lot of scenes from one doorway [looking] into another doorway, an old-fashioned bed and all. Creepy. Creepy beautiful.

[from "A setting right out of Andrew Wyeth" By Steven Rea Philadelphia Inquirer Movie Critic] From "An American Cinematographer" article about The Village: Shyamalan wanted the landscape and visuals of the film to be stark: "I do prefer one chair on a porch rather than all kinds of things on the porch, so to speak. That alone helps create a certain sense of isolation.

For more information about Wyeth's chairs, see here.

No. In the three scenes where Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) talks about his color, she doesn't name it. (1) Ivy to Lucius while at Resting Rock: Some people, just a handful, mind you, give off the tiniest color. It's faint, like a haze. It's the only thing I ever see in the darkness. Papa has it, too. Do you wonder what your color is? Well, that I won't tell you. It's not ladylike to speak of such things. You shouldn't even have asked. (2) Ivy to Lucius while on the front porch: "I saw you at the window. No, I won't tell you your color. Stop asking." (3) Ivy to her father after Lucius has been stabbed: "I cannot see his color." An alternate title for the film is "Grey," perhaps implying that Lucius' color was indeed grey. If this was so, it could mean that he was able to act as a sort of "go-between" between the two worlds—that of blind, faithful simplicity (yellow) and that of horrifying, brutal truth (red).

Yes, Shyamalan is Jay, Kevin's superior at the guard shack. He's the one who said, "Don't get into conversations". His face is reflected in the cabinet window when Kevin pockets the medicine requested by Ivy.

Yes, the script for this movie was stolen over a year before it was released, so the film was widely pre-reviewed on several Internet film sites including AICN.com. A copy can be obtained here.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) at first gave The Village an R rating due to the sound effect of the knife going in and out of Lucius when he was stabbed the second time. Although the scene itself was not changed when the sound was removed, the MPAA changed the rating to PG-13.

A lot of people have commented on the similarities. Basically, the plot (of Haddix's Running out of Time) is that a man starts an old-fashioned colony and all the adults know that it's really 1997, but they aren't allowed to tell the kids. A few of them get sick and a girl's mother sends her out to sneak into the real world for the needed medicine. Margaret Peterson Haddix actually did seek the advice of an attorney and considered pursuing the case, but never did. Copyright infringement is very hard to prove and, even if it did go to trial, it would have been her and Simon & Schuster (her publishing company) going up against M. Night Shyamalan and Disney. As such, the odds of winning weren't that great.

Yes, they did re-film the ending, but if you read the original script, you will see it has the same twist as the final film. So no, changes were not made because the twist was leaked. It looks on the face of it like the ending change was a response to bad test screening results.