Zo? Kravitz started writing “Blink Twice” before the #MeToo movement, then everything changed: 'The rules are different'

"Things that are in the script kept on changing quite drastically culturally in the zeitgeist," Kravitz says of the script for her directorial debut.

A lot has changed since Zo? Kravitz started working on her directorial debut feature Blink Twice — and no, we're not just talking about the less provocative title.

Blink Twice (formerly known as Pussy Island), which Kravitz also wrote alongside E.T. Feigenbaum, stars Naomi Ackie as Frida, a cocktail waitress tired of being overlooked who gets invited to billionaire tech mogul Slater King's (Channing Tatum) private island for what seems like a nonstop luxurious party. She soon discovers that paradise isn't all it seems when her best friend Jess (Alia Shawkat) goes missing, and none of the other partying vacationers seem to care — or even remember meeting her days earlier. The dark psychological thriller — also starring Christian Slater, Haley Joel Osment, Simon Rex, Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis, and Trew Mullen — becomes a literal fight for survival.

Related: Why Zo? Kravitz needed to make thriller Blink Twice her directorial debut (exclusive)

When Kravitz began writing Blink Twice in 2017, just before the advent of the #MeToo movement, she was inspired by a very real issue that she felt wasn't being addressed in society. Growing up as the daughter of two famous people — father Lenny Kravitz and mother Lisa Bonet — gave her a unique perspective on gender and power dynamics from a young age, and she wanted to shine a light on something she witnessed but never heard discussed.

"It came from many years of living life as a woman in this world, in rooms with powerful people in them, and witnessing these power dynamics from a very young age, and being interested in that," Kravitz tells Entertainment Weekly. "Also, I have friends and family members that are all also women in completely different situations in the world, whether they're waitresses, or doctors, or lawyers, or students, so it's just kind of a collection of being a woman in the world and seeing the way that things work, and seeing the way that these power dynamics play out on all different levels."

That's why it was so important to Kravitz to focus her debut on those issues. "It was definitely an interesting process to write a story from a certain point of view because there was, what I felt, a lack of conversation happening," she explains.

But throughout the years-long process of writing the script, the world changed. With the rise of the #MeToo movement and the Time's Up organization, society began having the hard conversations she wanted Blink Twice to inspire. So, the movie needed to be updated, over and over again. "A lot of subject matters and things that are in the script kept on changing quite drastically culturally in the zeitgeist," she explains. "And so, of course, we had to rewrite and adapt to that as well. So, there were many different versions of this world and of the story."

Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more.

She adds, "There's almost so many different conversations happening that it's hard to even know where to focus. And behaviors and what's acceptable and all these things change. And to have to grow and evolve with that, or to help the story grow and evolve with that, was a really interesting process. It's like this living, breathing thing — you're trying to catch up or keep up with this thing that feels quite alive. That's what's so exciting about the film coming out now — it does feel like this living entity to me in some way because of all of that."

Related: Channing Tatum would have done 'a lot of stripper moves' if he competed as Olympic breakdancer

While it's hard to get into specifics without spoiling the movie, Kravitz says of the changes: "In the original version of the script, the danger was a lot more in your face. And then, in a post-Time's Up/#MeToo world, having to create an environment where this conversation had been had by society, the rules are different, and the way that we play the game is different. So, I suppose just the information that the characters had going into the story had to very much change, and the seduction of this world, and what is seductive about it. Those are probably the biggest shifts."

Kravitz hopes that Blink Twice inspires audiences to have a conversation about hard topics, even if that conversation is different from what she originally envisioned seven years ago.

"I wanted the moments that were hard to be honest and real without being so uncomfortable that people look away," she says. "The point is to look. I am a true lover of the communal movie-going experience, and I love when you leave and you have these conversations, but you also leave feeling fulfilled and you had a good time. So, it was about finding a balance where we can have these real conversations about real things and still not feel manipulated, or icky, or you had to close your eyes or look away. I want this to be something that turns people's minds on. I want people to want to talk about these things, and for men and women and everybody to feel invited to have this conversation."

Blink Twice opens in theaters on Aug. 23.

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.