M. Night Shyamalan

Started by Xeditor, January 19, 2003, 10:35:37 PM

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matt35mm

You've been so ANGRY recently, Alexandro!

... I like it!

Kal

I think all his films since Sixth Sense are way overrated. Unbreakable was good, but not so great. Signs was OK. The Village? Terrible. I didnt even bother watching Lady in the Water. He thinks he is so fucking great, and thats why he's been declining over the years. Maybe the fact that all the studios told him to shove his new script up his ass will make him realize he needs to work harder and come up with a freakin good script finally.

MacGuffin

Misunderstood Night Shyamalan
Believes history will judge Lady in the Water "beautiful."
Source: NY Mag

Just days after "winning" two Golden Raspberry (Razzie) Awards for his universally drubbed film Lady in the Water—Worst Director and Worst Supporting Actor (yes, he cast himself in a key role)—M. Night Shyamalan dropped in from Philadelphia to hear Bono speak at the Time Warner Center. He'd come to get ideas for his own work on an anti-poverty foundation in India, and it turned out he hadn't heard about the Razzies yet. "Did I? I didn't know," he said. "Look, I loved that movie. It's a beautiful, beautiful movie. So there's some disconnect from the intention to the perception of it. I hope, just with time, that will ease. All of my movies have benefited from time." Shyamalan—who is working on film adaptations of the cartoons Avatar: The Last Airbender and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe—admitted to reading his reviews but says they have no influence on him. "I've got shit to say! I need to say it," he said. "I don't want to think about 'Will they like it or will they not like me?'" As for what shit he was saying in Lady, he didn't say.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Pubrick

Quote from: MacGuffin on March 05, 2007, 09:05:44 PM
"I've got shit to say! I need to say it," he said. ... As for what shit he was saying in Lady, he didn't say.
best ending to an article ever.
under the paving stones.

MacGuffin

Shyamalan Addresses Avatar
The Lady in the Water director discusses his upcoming adaptation.

IGN Movies has caught a sneak peek of the upcoming DVD release for Avatar: The Last Airbender - The Complete Book 2 Collection, on which director M. Night Shyamalan has a frank conversation with the show's creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino about bringing the animated series to live-action life.

"I really was looking for something to do where I could do these cool fighting scenes and everything," Shyamalan explains in the "Interview with Creators and M. Night Shyamalan" bonus featurette. "Avatar had such a beautiful way of doing that. The supernatural, with all of the elements -- that's another huge thing for me and it's kind of based in all of this eastern stuff; it's really beautiful ideas behind it."

The filmmaker notes that the biggest challenge he will face adapting the series to live-action will be the practical demands of the locations.

"When you guys write a scene that [takes place] in the North Pole, you can do that. But we've got to be in Arctic weather for months on end," he says. Additionally, Shyamalan lets slip that he is struggling with the challenge of streamlining the show's story to fit into three two-hour films. "It's going to be really hard for me because I really loved what you guys did and I'm finding it hard to let go of anything. At first when I put the outline together, I showed it to you guys and it basically had every single thing you guys wrote."

He is getting a grasp on the material, however, and beginning to break down the story into three self-contained films.

"I think I've got to a place where I really know how to bring in the characters, and what characters I can save for the other movies, and what moments we can save for the other movies," Shyamalan says. "So it's really starting to take shape into a two-hour movie -- and I think that will happen for each of the three movies."

"I think they're going to be mostly unknown kids and teenagers," Shyamalan adds of his potential.

But he looks forward to the adaptation process as it will mark his first formal collaboration with other screenwriters on a movie.

"The really cool thing for me is that I close my door and I write my movies and it's just the most lonely, depressing process that anyone could go through. On this movie, I've got you guys to be depressed with me, so this is such an exciting thing for me."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Exclusive: Shyamalan Talks Avatar
That's The Last Airbender, not Cameron's
Source: Empire Online

If you're a person who laments the decline of the Saturday morning kids cartoon genre, then you should really check out Avatar: The Last Airbender. It may not currently be on TV (we've not been getting up early), but it's available on DVD and it's properly brilliant; beautifully animated and very well written for kids' entertainment. M Night Shyamalan is currently in pre-production adapting the cartoon into a movie trilogy, so now is really the time to get yourself familiar with it.

We chatted with Shyamalan recently and he filled us in on a few details of the movie. For those who don't know the show, he explains the plot thusly:

"The actual plot is in a place where there are four tribes of people. And these people each have people within their tribe that have mastery over one element: water, earth, fire or air. They all live in a balance and harmony and once every generation there is born an individual who can bend – that is manipulate – all four of those elements and thereby keep a balance between all. They are kind of a Buddha figure to some extent. The story is about how, in this particular time, this avatar is born into the airbenders and disappears. Then all hell breaks loose and the fire nation basically commits genocide and eradicates the air tribe in the hopes of killing the avatar and taking over control of everything. This child then re-emerges, which is the beginning of our story. He reappears having been frozen in the ice — there is a whole story about how that happens — a hundred years later and this world is all fucked up and he is the last airbender, but he doesn't want this job. He's forced into the position of putting the world back together again. It actually has a lot of Shakespearean overtones to it. There's lots of family angst, and fathers denying sons in different storylines."

That all clear? Short version is, there's a small boy called Aang who has the potential to control all the elements and everyone wants to capture him. Shyamalan says it was the mythology and philosophy inherent in the story that attracted him to it.

"Buddhist and Hindu philosophies run through the stuff," he continues. "When I realised that is what it was, it really drew me as the template for putting storytelling on a new level. There is a kind of thread that connects Star Wars and The Matrix – the first one. That same thread is in this story, about a forgotten belief system, or the illusion of the world now."

Of course, philosophy doesn't necessarily guarantee bums on seats. But this is a film that has a great deal of potential for incredible spectacle. The most powerful of the element benders can do great things with their powers, like controlling a raging river or manipulating walls of flame. Done right, this should have some incredible action.

"Obviously [there will be] some breathtaking visual effects," the director says. "Just imagine if you saw a little girl bending water out of a glass into the air as an extension of her own personal discipline. It's three movies about the hero learning three elements. Live action".

But, equally, Shyamalan doesn't want the film, which he says will shoot on stages in Philadelphia, as well as locations including Greenland, to simply be an excuse for empty spectacle. He also acknowledges that this is a long way from anything he's done before. It's got the philosophical elements he likes, but it's also painting on a much larger canvas than any of his other films and speaking to a younger audience.

"It's daunting on the level of not doing it properly," he admits. "It can't be special effects for the sake of special effects, it has to be [that you use] take seven because the girl breathes properly on take seven. I have to tell the animators that. Everything, has to have that detail. I can't leave it. I have to make sure that I make it the same kind of storytelling, but with just one more tool."

Like we say, this is very different to anything Shyamalan's done before, but we can really see him making this work. Whether you like all his movies or not, you can't deny the man is blessed with a lot of imagination. And that's exactly what a project like this needs – someone who can wrestle the multiple ideas of the show into a simple, coherent and visually amazing film. This should, and hopefully will be, fantastic.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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tpfkabi

sorry if this is up somewhere else, but this was the first time i saw it.
surely it's got to be better than Lady

http://video.cineplex.com/?fr_story=c72ed1e5eef326a6bac15ef22b83eb418ac9524f&rf=bm
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

Bethie

I was just watching Signs on TV while at the gym. I am freaked out. I even screeched. It was bright. I wasn't alone. I kept looking behind me. The walk to the car through the parking lot, I was for sure that I was going to get abducted by aliens. I planned on swimming when I got home...forget that.


I'm slightly embarrassed.
who likes movies anyway

MacGuffin

Night falls for Media Rights
Shyamalan teams for producing deal
Source: Variety

Media Rights Capital and M. Night Shyamalan have formed the Night Chronicles, a financing/production partnership intended to generate one thriller per year for three years.

Shyamalan will produce but not direct, marking the first time he will produce a film he didn't write and helm. Shyamalan will create the stories and ideas for the films and pick the writers and directors; MRC will finance.

Shyamalan and MRC will co-own the copyrights and retain artistic control.

Two factors in particular attracted MRC to the filmmaker: Shyamalan typically generates more movie ideas than he can execute, since he writes, directs, produces and often acts in the films he makes. And he has a track record of bringing his films in on budget.

The new venture marks the first major deal for Tory Metzger since she left CAA to become prexy of MRC Films, and she expects that Shyamalan will be very hands-on with the Night Chronicles product.

"These films will be based on ideas in keeping with what has made Night so successful, and has made him unique to his time," Metzger told Daily Variety. MRC will set up each project for distribution when Metzger and co-CEOs Modi Wiczyk and Asif Satchu feel it's best for the film.The projects aren't formalized, and no writers have yet been hired, but Shyamalan has at least two ideas that could become films. The Night Chronicles will be based near Philadelphia, where the filmmaker lives and works. To oversee development, MRC has hired Ashwin Rajan, a veteran UTA agent who is Shyamalan's cousin.

The MRC deal is the second Shyamalan has made recently that gives him a copyright ownership stake. His pact with India-based entertainment company UTV on "The Happening" gave Shyamalan a 25% ownership stake in the negative; that inventive deal gave the director his usual upfront fee but traded his first-dollar gross participation for an ownership stake and 50% of the film's revenue stream, once 20th Century Fox and UTV recouped budget and P&A costs.

While the film hasn't performed as strongly as some of Shyamalan's past hits, "The Happening" cost around $50 million and is about to cross $150 million in worldwide gross. Shyamalan is in Japan to promote the film's opening there.

"Filmmakers have always been my inspiration," Shyamalan said in a statement. "Working with the next wave of innovative filmmakers will teach me many things that I can bring to my own writing/directing and give my stories the opportunity to be brought to the screen in a stunning way."

Shyamalan next directs "The Last Airbender," a live-action adaptation of the Nickelodeon property. Paramount has skedded the film for release on July 2, 2010.

MRC is in the midst of its most ambitious film slate since launching. The company has completed production on a half-dozen films ranging from the Robert Rodriguez-directed "Shorts" to "The Other Side of the Truth," which Ricky Gervais co-wrote and co-directed with Matthew Robinson, and has a handful of projects in the pipeline.

MRC also recently launched its TV production slate that includes programming a Sunday-night primetime block for CW and has hatched digital projects that include an original animated series creation by "Family Guy's" Seth MacFarlane that will be distributed by Google and YouTube.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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MacGuffin

Shyamalan Mulls Unbreakable Sequel
Source: SciFi Wire

M. Night Shyamalan said he is considering working on a sequel to his hit Unbreakable, a superhero tale about a man (Bruce Willis) who finds that he is impervious to harm and is called to become a savior.

"I'm a strange creature," the writer/director said in a conference call with reporters last week. "When Unbreakable came out, I was like, 'God, man I'm so excited.' I thought [it] was like comic books. No one has really done comic books like this: reality-based comic books. I really think this is a metaphor for things that people can go crazy over."

Though the film was eventually a hit, the initial reaction was mixed. "When the reaction was mixed, kind of a disappointment, I was pettily hurt, and I was like, 'God, I took so many incredible risks and things like that,'" Shyamalan said.

Because of that, Shyamalan's excitement about a sequel to the movie was muted. "I felt really hurt, and I couldn't bring myself to write," he said. "It's literally like a relationship I have with the audience. ... And then, over the years, as it just grew and grew and grew, and people were like, 'You know, I really like that. That's actually my favorite movie, and I watch that all the time,' and on and on. I'll be on the street, and some kid will run across traffic with it in his backpack--he just is carrying it in his backpack--and he'll be running [saying], 'I can't believe it's you!' Will you sign my Unbreakable DVD?' And quoting the thing and all that stuff."

As a result, Shyamalan said that the sequel idea now haunts him. "How bizarre," he said. "I want to write it right now, but I want to write it for the right reasons. I want a story to pop into my head that is organic and expressive of who I am. You know, these are all kind of journals of where I am emotionally, so it's kind of hard. I'm kind of trying to go back to the journal that existed in 1999 for me. But I know me: As soon as I give up on it is when the idea will come to me. It's just I need to go into therapy; I guess that's the end of that answer to this."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


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Stefen

I'll take him off the Ratner list if he does an Unbreakable sequel. That would be awesome.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

Alexandro

wow, he's so full of himself it stops being funny. "i took all these incredible risks"...you would think he was making l'eclisse...

Stefen

Well, to be fair, Unbreakable was a huge risk and that's what he was referring to.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

Gold Trumpet

I think Unbreakable was a pretty big risk. It was his second major film and he could have cemented his career by making a straight face comic book film, but he instead makes a reality based one that questions our idea of comic books and super heroes in general.

That being said, I hope he doesn't make Unbreakable because it is really good. It is the only comic book film I take seriously because it is the only one that is reflective of dramatic ideas and cultural thought. The Dark Knight has no philosophical compass outside the fictional world it's within so you have to rummage through made up ideas of the genre to find meaning in Batman. He resonates with the outside world in the very loosest sense.

To me comic books are a form of science fiction. They deal with fantastic scenarios, but are best when they propose theoretical ideas that resonate with our lives. Every comic book film has failed in that regard. Even if I was a die hard fan of a comic book figure and appreciated how a modern film mixed and matched every comic book interpretation of my hero in a cool new way, I would still understand the accomplishment was limited. It's not that meaningful. Casino Royale is the perfect Bond film because a lot of it is dedication to the genre of Bond, but it still was a trivial film.

Alexandro

only in the end you realize unbreakable is a comic book movie. it wasn't sold like one when it was on theatres, and if had been sold like that it would have tanked. to the casual viewer, this was a supernatural story. i love unbreakable, easily his best film, and the more risky. but you don't say things in interviews like "i'm a strange creature" and "i took all these incredible risks"....he sounds like an idiot. sorry.