Overnight is a 2022 survival horror film directed by Harry Stone and written from a screenplay by Samantha Carr based on an original story by Bradley Pearson. Produced by Universal Pictures, it stars the cast of Harley Foster, Joseph Jackson, Lionel Kemp, and Walter Mcfadden. In the film, Sam, Jay, Edison, and Kai try to spend various nights at a megastore and survive without getting caught and attacked by the store's workers.
Development began in November 2019, when Stone noticed a viral trend of people spending overnight at stores like Bloxstreet and Walmart. Stone was inspired by the idea and began working on the film. It was originally intended to be a comedy film, but after deciding that the workers would be the villain and to make the story more interesting, the film shifted to a horror genre. Production began in June 2020, with casting calls taking place throughout the months. Filming took place in a Walmart store from January to April 2021, with reshoots between June and September of the same year. David Henderson composed the film's musical score, while Interscreen Productions handled the visuals and CGI.
Overnight premiered at the main Cineblox Productions theater in Madison County, Bloxburg Valley on April 2, 2022, and was theatrically released in the United States on April 26 of that year. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the visuals, pacing and writing. It became a commercial success, grossing $317.6 million against its budget of $65 million.
Cast
- Harley Foster as Sam, a popular social media influencer.
- Joseph Jackson as Jay, a high student student.
- Lionel Kemp as Edison, a friend of Sam.
- Walter Mcfadden as Kai, the "leader" of the group.
Production
Development
In November 2019, while working on the early stages of Roblox: The Movie (2026), Stone became aware of a popular viral trend in which people spend the night at stores like Walmart and Bloxstreet. One of his friends attempted to replicate the trend a year earlier in 2018, but was apprehended by employees and fined an estimated $500 for "breaking in," before being banned from Walmart for about six months. Stone was intrigued by the idea and wanted to explore the concept of staying overnight, so he wrote a story treatment about a group of teenagers breaking into a store and attempting to avoid being caught by the employees. Stone described the original plot as "nearly identical" to the final version, with "slight differences". However, the script encountered story issues as Stone attempted to find a villain for the film, with a plot twist involving one of the teenagers, but decided to scrap the idea because it was "off-putting". During development, Stone hired Samantha Carr to write story treatments, and she went on to write the official screenplay. Carr proposed the idea of the workers as the villain. As a result, the film, which was originally intended to be a horror-comedy hybrid, was simply transformed into a horror movie.
Because the film was set in a store, outside from the first minutes, the script was "limited to a good amount" and did not allow for "great storytelling to be told". Stone and Carr decided that the film's main focus would be on the workers and the teenagers. They were unable to "crack the story" by April 2020, so the script was rewritten several times. During production, a team member suggested that the CEO, named Bob, be introduced in early scripts as the actual villain. However, in the final version, the CEO was toned down to focus more on the employees. The story was written by Bradley Pearson. On May 5, 2020, Universal Pictures announced Overnight as Stone's next project.