There’s no one quite so adept at navigating the mundane horror of suburbia than filmmaker David Robert Mitchell, who has turned his camera on both the gentle pains and pleasures of a summer spent noodling around the ‘hood (with “The Myth of the American Sleepover”) and the visceral terror of being stalked through the sorts of spaces that should feel safe (“It Follows”).
Following his polarizing neo-noir “Under the Silver Lake,” Mitchell is back strolling and trolling the streets of a cozy neighborhood in Anywhere, USA. Except, well, as the first teaser for his upcoming “The End of Oak Street” showed us when it was released at the end of March, things are very much not what they seem. For one thing, there are dinosaurs in this seemingly normal suburban enclave, which appears to have suddenly been displaced into a different time and place.
The Warner Bros. film, Mitchell’s first studio outing, is produced by J.J. Abrams through his Bad Robot production label. An official synopsis for the film reads: “After a mysterious cosmic event rips Oak Street from suburbia and transports their neighborhood to someplace unknown, the Platt family soon discovers that their very survival depends on them sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings.”
Top of the list of “unrecognizable surroundings”: dinosaurs, and lots of them! Early marketing for the film has not been shy about the dino pals stomping around our central family’s seemingly normal suburban enclave, nor have the teaser and today’s new trailer played coy about the entirety of Oak Street “moving” to a new location. But there has to be more to it, right? Dinosaurs, splashy, scary, yes, but what is the meaning behind all of it? Hopefully, we’ll find out soon.
The film, previously announced as “Flowervale Street,” stars Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella, Christian Convery, Jordan Alexa Davis, P.J. Byrne, and Chris Coy. Other executive producers include Hannah Minghella, Jon Cohen, Matt Jackson, and Tommy Harper.
Warner Bros. will release “The End of Oak Street” in theaters on Friday, August 14. Catch up with its first teaser, which you can watch right here.
