'Session 9' Director Brad Anderson Will Helm Survivalist Thriller 'Existence' From The Writer Of 'The Shallows'

Brad Anderson, the filmmaker responsible for Session 9, The Machinist, Beirut and more, has a new thriller in the works. The director will helm Existence, inspired by the true story of a shipwrecked crew stranded on a remote island, forced to confront a group of people who have lived in a primal state for over 60,000 years. Anthony Jaswinski, who wrote the fun shark movie The Shallows, penned the script.Deadline has the news on Brad Anderson's Existence movie. Anderson may not be the most well-known filmmaker, but he's had a hand in some great under-the-radar films. Films like Session 9, a fantastic indie horror movie set in an abandoned insane asylum; and The Machinist, in which Christian Bale lost a staggering amount of weight to play a man who hadn't slept for a full year. Anderson's latest is inspired buy "the 1981 ill-fated shipwreck of a research vessel that became marooned after a typhoon on a remote island — the North Sentinel Island –in the Indian Ocean." The shipwreck is the least of the problems, though, as the synopsis continues:

Upon exploring the terrain, the surviving crew encounters multiple terrors not only from the forces of nature but also from a sect of people who have existed in a primal state for about 60,000 years. Widely considered to be the last remaining Pre-Neolithic society on Earth, the North Sentinelese tribesmen have successfully saved themselves from extinction by exercising their right to resist all integration with the outside world – avoiding the catastrophic violence and disease that such contact has historically brought to other indigenous people.

You can read more about the true story here. As that story reveals, the Sentinelese tribesmen encountered by the shipwreck crew were basically still living in the Stone Age. The surviving crew were in a standoff with the tribesmen for days, and eventually rescued by helicopter. The marooned ship, and its cargo, remain on the island to this day. Since the Deadline story says Anderson's film is "inspired by" this true story, I'm guessing Existence, which was written by Anthony Jaswinski, will take some liberties with the truth in the name of drama. Jaswinski wrote The Shallows, in which Blake Lively has to face off against a killer shark. That film was highly entertaining, but I don't know if the same level of excitement will carry over to this story. Jaswinski has also worked with Anderson before – he wrote the script to Anderson's 2010 thriller Vanishing on 7th Street.