“The Forest”: 17 interesting facts about the movie! (List)

1. The Forest is a 2016 American supernatural horror film directed by Jason Zada and written by Ben Ketai, Nick Antosca, and Sarah Cornwell. It stars Natalie Dormer and Taylor Kinney.

2. The film was released on January 8, 2016 in the United States by Gramercy Pictures.

3. Natalie Dormer actually went to the suicide forest for research with her Japanese driver, she ventured five meters off the path to take photos and her Japanese driver wouldn’t step half an inch over the path.

4. Aokigahara, known as the Suicide Forest or Sea of Trees is a 35-square-kilometre forest lying at the north-west base of Mount Fuji in Japan. The forest has an association with demons in Japanese mythology, and is a common suicide site; a sign at the start of the main trail urges suicidal visitors to contact a suicide prevention association. There have been two recent movies inspired by this premise: Shawn4Ever (2012) and The Sea of Trees (2015), both released before The Forest.

5. The poster for the film features Natalie Dorner’s face with the bottom half removed, and the dividing line forming a silhouette of treetops and dangling nooses. This bears a clear resemblance to an infamous image of the body of an actual suicide victim of the forest, a bald man found in such a decomposed state that his jaw had fallen off and strips of flesh were hanging from where it had been. The image is also replicated in the film, albeit in a slightly less grotesque form.

6. Yukiyoshi Ozawa’s English movie debut.

7. Jason Zada’s feature debut.

8. According to the spanish comic author Juan Torres, the plot, title, and look of the film are very similar to the ones on “El bosque de los suicidas”, a spanish comic book by himself and Gabriel Hernández published on 2011.

9. In May 2014, Focus Features acquired domestic distribution rights to the film.

10. On May 20, 2015, Focus Features relaunched their Gramercy Pictures label for action, horror, and science-fiction movies, with the film being one of its releases.[14] The film was released in the United States on January 8, 2016.

11. Principal photography began on May 17, 2015 in Tokyo, Japan.

12. As filming in the Aokigahara forest is not permitted by the government, the filmmakers chose a forest near the Tara Mountain in Serbia to double as the Japanese forest in which the film is set.

13. Poor weather plagued the production in Serbia, and many scenes were shot in a former warehouse.

14. As of February 15, 2016, The Forest has grossed $26.3 million in North America and $4.3 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $30.6 million, against a budget of $10 million.

15. The film was released on January 8, 2016, alongside the wide release of The Revenant. In its opening weekend, the film was projected to gross $8–10 million from 2,451 theaters.

16. The film made $515,000 from its early Thursday screenings and $5 million on its first day, including Thursday’s gross. The film grossed $13.1 million during its opening weekend, finishing fourth at the box office, behind Star Wars: The Force Awakens ($41.6 million), The Revenant ($38 million), and Daddy’s Home ($15 million).

17. The plot: The majority of the story is set in and around the Aokigahara Forest, a forest at the northwest base of Mount Fuji in Japan known as a popular destination for the suicidal. Sara Price, an American woman, receives a phone call from the Japanese police telling her that they think her troubled twin sister Jess is dead, as she was seen going into Aokigahara forest. Despite the concerns of her fiancé, Rob, she journeys to Japan and arrives at the hotel where her sister was staying.