A New Silent Hill Movie With Director Christophe Gans Is On The Way

After a 15-year wait, director Christophe Gans is returning to the world of "Silent Hill" with his new film rightfully titled "Return to Silent Hill." Gans has been teasing the promise of a new "Silent Hill" movie for months, but the previously reported reboot was declared during Konami's special presentation today to be "the catalyst for the revival of new 'Silent Hill' games." As IP and cross-media development director Rui Naito tells it, Victor Hadida, one of the producers for the original 2006 film, approached the company about a possible new film. The pitch was apparently good enough to not only get Gans back on board, but also inspire the company to return to the "Silent Hill" game series and make new installments. So since then, together with [game designer Yoshiki] Okamoto, we have been on the road to revive the games," said Naito. "Silent Hill" is considered one of the best adaptations of a video game, and a return to the series is long overdue.

Konami

Christophe Gans also showed up to provide a director's statement for the announcement, as well as share concept art for the film, which will be a psychological horror film inspired by the story in the game "Silent Hill 2." Hadida said the goal is to "make it modern, but also very true to the video game," and promised that fans will get to see their favorite monsters once again, including the terrifying and weirdly sexy Pyramid Head, but given an updated look from its original design. "The film tells the story of a young guy coming back to Silent Hill, where he has known a great love and what he's going to find is a pure nightmare," said Gans.

"In the first 'Silent Hill,' we were exploring a world, the world of this small town, completely closing into the mist," said Hadida. "It was like being trapped in a twilight zone, but in the second game, the creators of the game have changed the rules." The film will be told from the perspective of the hero James Sunderland, who enters the eponymous town after receiving a letter from his wife Mary. There's only one problem, Mary died three years earlier. "At its core, it's also the idea of the myth of Orpheus, and whether a man can go deep in Hell to bring back the soul or the person he loved the most in his life," Hadida continued.

Konami

"The first big interrogation and the first big terror is about ourselves," posited Gans. "Are we mad? Are we sane? Are we sane to go back to 'Silent Hill' to find this great love?" Hadida insisted that the film will respect the will of the original authors of "Silent Hill 2," as well as the legacy of the Konami series. Gans has spent many years away from the series, and as such has had plenty of time to think about his approach to the material. "It nurtures the creative vision of the authors from the game but with a different vision from a filmmaker," said Hadida. The film is still in the early stages of pre-production, but rest assured, we will be closely following the progression of this film like the weirdo "Silent Hill" marks that we are.