The Village (2004 Film) - Production

Production

The film was originally titled The Woods, but the name was changed because a film directed by Lucky McKee, The Woods, already had that title. Like other Shyamalan productions, this film had high levels of secrecy surrounding it, needed to protect the expected twist ending that was a known Shyamalan trademark. Despite that, the script was stolen over a year before the film was released, prompting many "pre-reviews" of the film on several Internet film sites and much fan speculation about plot details including the film's leaked final line, a truck driver exclaiming "Crazy fucking white people".

The village seen in the film was built in its entirety in one field outside Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. An adjacent field contained an on-location temporary sound stage. Production on the film started in October 2003, with delays because some scenes needing fall foliage could not be shot because of a late fall season. Principal photography was wrapped up in mid December of that year. In April and May 2004, several of the lead actors were called back to the set. Reports noted that this seemed to have something to do with a change to the film's ending, and, in fact, the film's final ending differs from the ending in a stolen version of the script that surfaced a year earlier with the "Crazy fucking white people" scene replaced by an "Ivy meets a friendly ranger" sequence and a new ending scene added after that with all the Elders and Ivy around Lucius' bed.