‘Midnight Special’ Trailer

It’s been way too long since the last Jeff Nichols movie.

Nichols started his career with three awesome movies in five years: Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter, and Mud. But Mud debuted in 2012 before making its way to theaters in early 2013. Through most of the interim, we knew what Nichols was working on — a sci-fi thriller called Midnight Special — but it kept getting pushed further and further back. It was going to open next week at one point, but now doesn’t reach theaters until March. Finally, at long last, we got the movie’s first trailer today.

As advertised, it’s a sci-fi thriller about a father (Michael Shannon) and son (Jaeden Lieberher) with incredible powers on the run from various forces. Here’s the official synopsis:

In the sci-fi thriller Midnight Special, writer/director Jeff Nichols proves again that he is one of the most compelling storytellers of our time, as a father (Michael Shannon) goes on the run to protect his young son, Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), and uncover the truth behind the boy’s special powers. What starts as a race from religious extremists and local law enforcement quickly escalates to a nationwide manhunt involving the highest levels of the Federal Government. Ultimately his father risks everything to protect Alton and help fulfill a destiny that could change the world forever in this genre–defying film as supernatural as it is intimately human.

The cast is rounded out by Kirsten Dunst, Joel Edgerton, and Adam Driver, and the film looks to expand Nichols’ career-long fascination with fathers and sons and their complex relationships into a new genre. The only good news about the movie taking so long to come to theaters is the fact that we shouldn’t have to wait nearly this long to get the next Nichols movie after Midnight Special. He’s already started shooting Loving, about an interracial couple living in the South in the 1950s, so we might even see that one at fall festivals by late 2016. Midnight Special opens in theaters on March 18.