This film hitting drive-in theaters Friday has 5-minute-long black screen dialogue

The coronavirus pandemic has also caused movie theaters nationwide in the US to close their doors, but after staying closed for some time, some drive-in ones have reopened.

Drive-in movie theaters allow people to watch a movie on a big screen from their vehicles.

Amazon Studios original movie “The Vast of Night” is hitting select drive-in theaters nationwide on May 15, and it has an about five-minute-long blank screen dialogue.

According to Press Notes that the studio had distributed to members of the press, the movie’s director, Andrew Patterson, was asked in an interview conducted by the studio for media, “You’ve mentioned radio drama and, in fact, during one of the most spellbinding scenes in the movie, you do turn off the picture. What were you thoughts about doing that?”

“During the long phone call scene, yeah,” replied Patterson, according to the notes US and Global News also obtained. “Well, I read this 24-page interaction between two or three characters on the page, which I absolutely loved.”

“That was super ballsy writing and I thought, man, what should we do here to keep people invested while still honoring this incredible scene. So I made a decision to experiment with a blank screen.”

The interviewer asked, “How long is that scene in the movie?”

Patterson replied, “It’s about 16 minutes. And we did experiment with turning off the picture for the entire scene, but it was just a little too ‘bold.’ But there’s about five minutes on the whole where the screen is completely black.”

The interviewer inquired, “And the audiences you’ve watched the film with so far, do they get what you’re doing there?”

Patterson responded, “They dive in, man. People warned me that the audience would all turn around to see if the projector was broken, but the exact opposite happens – they sit there so still, like if they move or breathe they’re going to disrupt the flow of information coming. And we had sound designed it in a way to make sure that you knew it was intentional. It’s really fun.”

The film is Patterson’s debut movie. Slash Film declared it will “leave you wanting more films from Patterson down the road.”

Rolling Stone called the movie an “ingenious debut.”

According to People, the film will be shown in select drive-in theaters across the US on May 15 and 16 in support of its Prime Video launch on May 29.

The full interview with Patterson can be read in our copy of Amazon Studios Press Notes PDF, here.