There I was in the theater accompanied by my roommate, taking in the trailers before "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World." I was intrigued by one in particular. Four people get into an elevator and it stops dead. What follows is a series of sounds and images that suggest an excitingly claustrophobic thriller.
Then it happened.
One title flashed across the screen that shattered any tension or excitement that had been built by the masterful trailer: "From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan."
A collective groan filled the theater. I had never seen such an instantaneous shift. Just moments before, couples were clinging to each other and fanboys had been whispering excitedly about the new horror prospect.
All it took was one name to dispel any interest. People who had been hanging onto their seats were now laughing. It's not exactly news that Shyamalan has become something of a joke. What is amazing, however, is that the mere mention of the once-great Shyamalan's name now appears to be a deterrent rather than a draw. "Devil" opened third in the nation on the 17th to a weekend box office of $12,584,000. This isn't terrible considering its budget was $10,000,000. However, consider that Ben Affleck's "The Town" came in at number one with a nearly 24mil opening followed by "Easy A" with 18. That's a pretty wide gap.
Shyamalan did not direct Devil, which may be its saving grace. In fact, he didn't even write the screenplay. Shyamalan is credited with the story while Brian Nelson (Hard Candy) receives screenwriting kudos. This may actually be an indicator of what Shyamalan's future presence in Hollywood will be like: Come up with some fun, spooky concepts and let others develop it. What the studios may want to consider, though, is not using Shyamalan's name to promote projects. His goodwill from The Sixth Sense has apparently run out.
That's interesting, that the people in the room were dispelled that easy by just the mentioning of Shyamalan's name.
ReplyDeleteI've never seen the Sixth Sense, so I don't know how good of a movie that is. And I haven't seen that many movies by him either. But I did see Avatar: The Last Air Bender and it could've been better.
That is pretty funny. I do find it quite sad though that M. Night was once considered the next best director in Hollywood in the late 90's, early 2000's, with hits like the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. I've seen both of those and I must say they are both pretty good, great stories, great focus on characters (particularly the theme of heroism in unbreakable), and even Signs, which was a pretty successful project for him wasn't it? But yeah, the consensus is that his time has run out but I remember back in the day when his "twists" were something people looked forward to in movies and even though we knew they were coming they still captivated us. He lost the magic somewhere along the way though, maybe his concept just got old..the beginning of the end was probably "Lady in the Water" I remember thinking to myself 'wth was that?' as the credits rolled..
ReplyDeleteI felt exactly the same way, except my experience was with the poster in the theater lobby. My little brother and I were there to see "MACHETE", and I saw the word "DEVIL" on a poster. I went closer, said to 'lil bro, "Hey, check this out." It indeed looked interesting, and then we looked up at the top of the poster. "Oh, never mind..." we said simultaneously, and since I shouted "jinx" first, he bought my drink for the movie.
ReplyDeleteSome artistic careers start at the top. "Ten" is my favorite Pearl Jam album, and everything else has paled in comparison. Likewise with Shyamalan: "6th Sense" was awesome, "Unbreakable" was pretty good, "Signs" killed a couple hours, "The Village" was enjoyable until the end, and the last one I saw, "Lady In the Water", I might have turned off if I hadn't made myself stick it out in case anything good happened at the end. Me and M. Night, it's like an abusive relationship and I've been on the receiving end of and I walked out a while ago.
What do you think caused this shift? I remember the buzz around "Sixth Sense", and it felt similar (although less hyped) for "Signs"... Did we as movie-goers just get tired of his particular brand of storytelling? Were all the general emotions drawn from his films so similar that we maxed out on them? Was his style just a novelty that wore off? Or generally speaking, did his films just go from great to trite? (I haven't seen the last few...just like a lot of people...)
ReplyDelete