M. Night Shyamalan is back in cinemas with the Josh Hartnett-led “Trap” which follows in the wake of the resurgence in his career in recent years.
The genre thriller filmmaker broke through with 1999’s smash hit “The Sixth Sense” followed by several well-received successes including “Unbreakable” and “Signs”.
The tide began to turn with 2004’s “The Village” which scored a more mixed response while 2006’s “Lady in the Water” began a run of critical and commercial disasters including “The Happening,” “The Last Airbender,” and “After Earth”.
Looking back on those duds while speaking with The Atlantic, Shyamalan says if he could make “The Village” over again he’d do nearly everything the same. He adds that he still loves “Lady in the Water”.
However the two films that weren’t based on his own original ideas – “The Last Airbender” and “After Earth” – aren’t so fondly remembered. Dubbing them his ‘hired gun’ phase, he says: “I’m so bad at that. I’m so bad at it, and I felt so empty.”
Shyamalan then took a loan against his house to fund the low-budget “The Visit” in 2015 which cost just $5 million and made $98 million. Since then he’s had a successful run at Universal with “Split,” “Glass,” “Old” and “Knock at the Cabin”. With “Trap” he shifts to Warner Bros. Pictures who opens the film this Friday.
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