M. Night Shyamalan

[criterionmaster]

Talk about this idiot.

[criterionmaster]

Shyamalan Feels Green About "Planet"
from Variety 1/28/07

You have to give M. Night Shyamalan credit for one thing, he's determined.

Variety reports that the "The Sixth Sense" & "The Village" filmmaker has decided to put his plans for a live-action adaptation of the cartoon series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" on hold for now.

Rather he's pursuing his new script "The Green Effect" which deals with a large-scale, cataclysmic environmental crisis along "Day of the Triffids" style lines.

Last week it was reported that no studios were interested enough in the project to pick it up, and that report has since been confirmed by the trade paper.

It adds however that the director walked away from his round of meetings with ideas and notes and has gone home to do a rewrite.

He then will return within a month, armed with a script that will bear a new title, along with a cast and budget.

Shyamalan's recent visits did not include the Disney offices apparently with whom he had a now infamous falling out with over the script of his recent failure "Lady in the Water".

[ie]

"live-action adaptation of the cartoon series "Avatar: The Last Airbender""
Even by a great director, that concept just would not work. It's too CGI intensive and the result will look like shit, plus they'll get all the little cultural things wrong and it will be saddening.


I didn't think Signs was that bad, however this was before I realized what good movies and bad movies were both like, so I can't say. And by "not that bad" I mean only the first half.

The twist was made of faulty logic and failure. If I go for a rewatch and end up enjoying it, then I'll think of it like Ringu. Very good suspenseful horror movie up until the OH NOES THE SCAREY GIRL IS GONNA CRAWL ON YAR TATAMI MATS AND KEEEELLL YOUUU! part. So just ignore it. Stop the DVD, tell the children that's it, and they'll enjoy the movie more.


Overall, though, I have to make my own decision on this guy, without outside influence.

[captainofbeef]

I really dig him. He is a very fun and unfairly bashed director. Sixth Sense is masterful, Unbreakable and Signs were very fun, The Village and Lady in the Water are very underrated. I look forward to anything he does in the future.

[PTAhole]

He is underrated.

1. Unbreakable (10)
2. The Sixth Sense (10)
3. Lady in the Water (9)
4. The Village (8)
5. Signs (6)

[criterionmaster]

ie said:

"live-action adaptation of the cartoon series "Avatar: The Last Airbender""
Even by a great director, that concept just would not work. It's too CGI intensive and the result will look like shit, plus they'll get all the little cultural things wrong and it will be saddening.


I didn't think Signs was that bad, however this was before I realized what good movies and bad movies were both like, so I can't say. And by "not that bad" I mean only the first half.

The twist was made of faulty logic and failure. If I go for a rewatch and end up enjoying it, then I'll think of it like Ringu. Very good suspenseful horror movie up until the OH NOES THE SCAREY GIRL IS GONNA CRAWL ON YAR TATAMI MATS AND KEEEELLL YOUUU! part. So just ignore it. Stop the DVD, tell the children that's it, and they'll enjoy the movie more.


Overall, though, I have to make my own decision on this guy, without outside influence.

You will probably die when you re-watch Signs, it is just terrible. I liked this man more before I saw Fanny and Alexander, which he ripped off for The Sixth Sense without giving credit to. I would rank what I have seen by him as such:

1. Sixth Sense - 8/10
2. Unbreakable - 8/10
3. Signs - 1/10 (on my most hated list)

I do like his love for Hitchcock though, and his interviews on the Signature box set are nice.

[ie]

He lifed bits from Fanny and Alexander to put into the Sixth Sense? What? That doesn't make sense to me at all.

[criterionmaster]

"I see dead people..." You will catch the similarities when you see both films, but they are very obviously. In fact one full scene from Fanny and Alexander in the attic is basically beat for beat in Sixth Sense.

[criterionmaster]

Shyamalan's 'Green Effect' Gets Greenlight -- Now Called 'The Happening'
Posted Mar 7th 2007 8:33AM by Scott Weinberg
Filed under: Horror, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Thrillers, 20th Century Fox



Not only is M. Night Shyamalan moving from (Disney to) Warner Bros. to Fox for his next project ... but it''ll be the guy's first R-rated movie, too! After shopping around a screenplay called The Green Effect, M. Night took some tips from colleagues, re-jiggered the script, re-named it The Happening, and landed himself a sweet deal at Fox. According to Variety, The Happening will be apocalyptic in nature, perhaps on scale with the studio's Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. Expect the movie to hit theaters in June of 2008.

Mr. Shyamalan will head back to Philadelphia (yay!) in August to start shooting his new movie, and we're promised a "big name" for the lead role. The trade paper also states that the Happening budget will be $57 million, and also that the plot will be "a paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity." One of the selling points on this particular project is that both Shyamalan and Fox chief Tom Rothman wanted to really "up" the scariness, thus resulting in a project that'll be M. Night's first R-rated effort. The controversial thriller-maker made reference to both Silence of the Lambs and Pan's Labyrinth while describing his vision of The Happening ... which makes me both skeptical and curious. Either way, I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer for Night's Avatar and He-Man projects, which is just fine by me.

[criterionmaster]

This is funny, but also makes me sad how quick Hollywood turned on him, he had to turn to fucking Bollywood!

Shyamalan Resurfaces with Bollywood Financing

Director M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense), whose stock in Hollywood reportedly fell through the floor following the disastrous failure of his last film, Lady in the Water, has found a Bollywood production company to help foot the bill with 20th Century Fox for a new film, The Happening, which will reportedly star Mark Wahlberg. In a video news conference on Wednesday, Shyamalan, who was born in India but raised in suburban Philadelphia, said that he had approached Mumbai (Bombay)-based UTV to finance half the $57-million budget of the film "so that I can have ownership rights over the movie rather than just selling it to the studio." Ronnie Screwala, CEO of UTV, who agreed to participate in the venture, said, "It's going to be a huge budget, but it will be fantastic if there was an Indian connection on both sides." He said his company also partially financed Chris Rock's upcoming I Think I Love My Wife.

[ie]

Bollywood isn't that bad.

Oh wait, that link didn't help my argument at all.