Development and pre-production In October 2022,
Universal Pictures announced a then-untitled film from filmmaker
M. Night Shyamalan. In February 2023, the film was revealed to be titled
Trap when it changed distributor, as Shyamalan and his production company
Blinding Edge Pictures entered a
first-look deal with
Warner Bros. Pictures. The film sprouted from conversations Shyamalan had with his daughter, singer-songwriter
Saleka, about combining the concert and theatrical experience and devising an album for a narrative, similar to how
Prince wrote the
titular album for the 1984 musical film
Purple Rain. Shyamalan initially planned to let another filmmaker write the script and direct the film from his original idea for a thriller set at a concert, before changing his mind after realizing he could make the film with Saleka. The premise was inspired in part by
Operation Flagship, a 1985
sting operation in which disguised law enforcement arrested 101 wanted fugitives at a convention center, having invited them under the pretense of gifting them free
NFL tickets and an opportunity to win an all-expenses-paid trip to
Super Bowl XX. Shyamalan
pitched Trap as setting
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) at a
Taylor Swift concert, in reference to her
Eras Tour, and wrote the screenplay in five-and-a-half months, a personal record for him. He produced the film with Marc Bienstock and Ashwin Rajan. Saleka stars as singer Lady Raven, whose concert the characters attend. As her father was writing the script, she composed fourteen songs for the film, designed diegetically to match the action onscreen. Saleka previously collaborated with her father by making a
single for the film
Old (2021) and an
EP for the series
Servant. Shyamalan was inspired to incorporate musical elements by
Purple Rain and visiting Saleka on tour. Saleka also noted
Bollywood cinema, in which
music often plays a key role in the storytelling, as an influence, and listed
Adele,
Billie Eilish,
Rihanna,
Rosalía, and Taylor Swift as inspirations for her performance. She described
Trap as a "Shyamalan American version of a Bollywood movie that is grounded and the songs make sense — not necessarily a musical, but completely music-centric." Shyamalan originally intended to frame the film in a
4:3 aspect ratio, but after a discussion with cinematographer
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, they agreed it limited their ability to shoot the movie and was "too much work" to create a feeling of claustrophobia. They changed it to a
1.85:1 aspect ratio, and the film was re-storyboarded. Shyamalan wrote
Hayley Mills's investigator character as a "maternal figure" to contrast Cooper's lack of empathy. Ariel Donoghue, who plays Cooper's daughter Riley, attended school in between filming.
Filming and post-production .
Principal photography was originally scheduled to begin in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA in August 2023, where it would have received over $9 million in
tax credits from the state to film there. Production relocated to Toronto, Ontario, and was granted an interim agreement on September 18, 2023, to film during the
SAG-AFTRA strike. Under the
working title Good Grades, filming was scheduled to occur from October 16 to December 8, 2023. The film's pop concert venue, known as "Tanaka Arena", was filmed in
Hamilton, Ontario, inside
TD Coliseum, a 20,000-seat arena that the production obtained access to for two to three months because it was undergoing renovations. Toronto's
Rogers Centre stood in as the venue's exterior. Songs in the film were performed on stage as if it were a real concert. Cora Kozaris was the choreographer, and a videographer recorded onstage material and projected it onto the stadium's screens in real-time. The order of filming consisted of audience reactions, with music playing, followed by Saleka dancing and miming on stage, and then, after the extras went quiet, actors with dialogue, with a beat track in the background to help actors maintain rhythm. Hartnett and Donoghue screamed parts of their dialogue to match the intended noise levels of a concert.
Trap was released the same year as
The Watchers, the directorial debut of Saleka's sister,
Ishana Night Shyamalan; a poster for
The Watchers appears in the background of a scene in
Trap. Saleka and Ishana Shyamalan worked on their respective films on their family's property in Pennsylvania, with Saleka operating in a recording studio while Ishana
mixed her film next door. Editing and mixing were completed on June 22, 2024. In August 2024,
Deadline Hollywood reported the film's production budget to be $30 million. == Music ==