While on the press tour to discuss the animated film Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again, the movie’s producer (and Free Guy director) Shawn Levy took a little time to talk about his next high-profile project. Levy directed all episodes from the Netflix limited series All The Light We Cannot See, which is currently in post-production. In addition to working on the upcoming series, he's also directing for the final season of Stranger Things, gearing up to tackle another gritty and raw chapter in Deadpool's story, and setting his sights on his own Star Wars project.

With just four episodes, the historical story will center around a French blind teenage girl who crosses paths with a German soldier as they try to escape the destruction of Nazi-occupied France during World War II. The story of All The Light We Cannot See is a literary global phenomenon, with over 9 million copies sold across the planet. Aside from the coveted Pulitzer Prize, the novel also earned its author the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction in 2015. It stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for over two hundred weeks.

During the conversation, Collider’s Editor-in-Chief Steve Weintraub asked about the editing process of All The Light We Cannot See, and Levy ended up revealing the duration of the four episodes, what was his approach to the series, and what release window Netflix is aiming for. The series was announced in late 2021, and it’s one of the streamer’s most anticipated upcoming releases, which is why they’re looking carefully at the best periods to premiere it. As Levy shared:

“We have four locked episodes. We are coming out next year. Netflix has screened the whole series and feels very bullish about it. So we're talking now about release date. Because it's not just that it's this Pulitzer Prize-winning beautiful book. The series has ended up becoming very emotional, some of which comes from powerhouse actors like [Mark] Ruffalo and Hugh Laurie. But some of it comes from the decision to cast legally blind [actress Aria Mia Loberti, who makes her acting debut] to play the blind protagonist. And it gives the authenticity that I'd hoped it would to this piece. So we're looking at everywhere from spring through fall and trying to choose, I guess, the most well-suited date for release."

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RELATED: ‘Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again’ Review: A Fun-Sized Animated Blast From the Past

Levy went on to reveal that the limited series will be about four hours in total, explaining that, "overall it's about four because some episodes are coming in just above an hour, and I think two of the four come in just below. So I think cumulatively it ends up being four hours of content." He also went on to explain why he wanted to direct all the episodes and how he wanted it to feel like a four-hour film, saying:

"I shot all the episodes because I wanted to make this a four-hour film. And if you look at the people who were my creative team: James Newton Howard, Tobias Schliessler, Dean Zimmerman as editor, the same assistant director and line producer who have done my last 10 movies, this is a feature film approach to a limited series and the visuals and emotional scale feel very much more cinematic than television series."

Levy Explains Why All The Light We Cannot See Limited Series is Written By Only One Person

Levy also revealed that the whole team’s approach to the limited series was cinematic, starting with the fact that all episodes were written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders). The idea, according to Levy, was to have one person’s voice as opposed to a writer’s room putting together a script–which is common for series with bigger episode counts:

“The whole reason Stephen Knight wrote all the episodes himself, no writer's room, nothing, one authorial voice adapting this beautiful novel, the whole idea was, let's not stretch it to indulge some idea of an eight-episode limited series. Let's just make it as long as the story wants to be. And that ended up being four episodes that are propulsive and tight.”

Finally, the director also revealed that he was about to fly to London in order to listen in person to the series’ score by James Newton Howard. Since the series has a cinematic approach, Levy doesn’t rule out having screenings at film festivals, and adds that “like any filmmaker, it would be my bliss to share it with big sound, big picture, big audience.”

You can stream Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again at Disney+ now. Check out the trailer for the animated movie below: