M. Night Shyamalan’s career illustrates one of the paradoxes of Hollywood: the industry loves the myth of the auteur — until faced with the realities of the box office. From the New York Times:
M. Night Shyamalan says he knows exactly when his relationship with Hollywood started to sour.
In 2000, he was on a conference call with executives from Walt Disney Studios discussing “Unbreakable,” the follow-up to his phenomenally successful movie “The Sixth Sense.” He wanted to market “Unbreakable” as a comic-book movie – the tale of an unlikely superhero – but Disney executives insisted on portraying it as a spooky thriller, like “The Sixth Sense.”
“I remember the moment that it happened, exactly where I was sitting at the table, the speakerphone,” he recalled in an interview from his office in a converted farmhouse near Philadelphia. “That moment may have been the biggest mistake that I have to undo over 10 years so the little old lady doesn’t go, ‘Oh, he’s the guy who makes the scary movies with a twist.’ “
Eight years later, movie audiences still know Mr. Shyamalan as the guy who makes scary movies with a twist.
[Photo: The filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan at his home in Malvern, Pa.]
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