Trap

Overview

Trap is M. Night Shyamalan’s 2024 thriller for Warner Bros., starring Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Alison Pill, and Hayley Mills. The film was released in theaters on August 2, 2024, after first being announced as Shyamalan’s next feature under his Warner Bros. first-look deal.

The setup is clean and nasty in the right way: a father and his teenage daughter attend a major pop concert, only to realize that the arena is sitting at the center of something much darker. Trap feels different from some of Shyamalan’s recent movies. It is bigger, louder, and more openly showy, but the pressure is still built the way he usually likes it, with people trapped inside a situation that keeps tightening around them.

Quick Facts

  • Release date: August 2, 2024
  • Director / writer: M. Night Shyamalan
  • Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
  • Genre: Thriller / mystery
  • Starring: Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills

Story

Trap takes a tight thriller idea and drops it into an enormous concert environment. Instead of a house or a small town, the movie works with an arena crowd, stage lights, security presence, and the strange feeling that a public event can become its own sealed world. That switch in scale gives the movie a pulse of its own.

The concert setting also gives the film room to play with performance, image control, and the pressure of trying to stay calm in a place built to overwhelm you. Josh Hartnett’s lead performance sits at the center of that, while Saleka Shyamalan’s Lady Raven helps shape the whole movie’s atmosphere. The pop-star angle shapes the whole mood of the movie.

Main Cast

  • Josh Hartnett as Cooper
  • Ariel Donoghue as Riley
  • Saleka Shyamalan as Lady Raven
  • Alison Pill as Rachel
  • Hayley Mills as Dr. Josephine Grant

For a fuller cast breakdown, visit the Trap cast page.

Trailers and Marketing

The first official trailer arrived in April 2024 and immediately sold the movie’s identity: a father, a daughter, a concert, and a trap hidden in plain sight. The poster campaign and Lady Raven music push gave the film a stronger public face as the summer release got closer.

See the Trap trailers page for the official trailer links and release rollout.

More on Trap

Latest Coverage

More on this film: Soundtrack

More on this film: Score

More on this film: Collectibles