Fox lands Shyamalan movie
Studio greenlights thriller 'Happening'
Source: Variety
M. Night Shyamalan's next film will be a happening at 20th Century Fox.
Studio has pledged a green light for "The Happening," a spec script thriller that Shyamalan wrote and will direct in Philadelphia this August. Fox has earmarked the film for a June, 2008 release.
The Fox deal, which was spearheaded by Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman/CEO Tom Rothman, ends an unusually complex and public process for Shyamalan, who, since "The Sixth Sense," had made all his films for Disney. That was until a falling out over "Lady in the Water" which led him to make that picture for Warner Bros.
Shyamalan will produce with Sam Mercer. He also reunites with "Munich" producer Barry Mendel, who produced the Shyamalan-directed "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable."
Pic, which will mark Shyamalan's first R-rated effort, is a paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity. The pic is expected to carry a budget of around $57 million, and Shyamalan told Daily Variety he expects to cast a big male star for the lead.
Shyamalan will prep and shoot "The Happening" as he continues to write the script for "Avatar: The Last Airbender." Shyamalan will follow with that live action film for Paramount.
When he visited Hollywood to seal his "Avatar" deal, Shyamalan and his new CAA reps met with execs atop almost every studio. Each read an early draft of "The Happening," which at the time was titled "The Green Effect." The buzz around Hollywood was that no studio loved the draft enough to make a deal.
Shyamalan said he wasn't at all bothered by that. Though he didn't return to Philadelphia with a deal, he got strong notes and observations from several top studio execs like Rothman that helped him hone his vision.
Shyamalan, who by then reunited with Mendel, then rewrote the film.
By the time he was done six weeks later, several studios offered to green light it, Shyamalan said. He landed at Fox partly because of Rothman's enthusiasm, and also, he said, because the studio has demonstrated acumen in marketing similar apocalyptic fare like "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow."
"Because I'd been so lucky in making successful movies in the past, I was in monogamous relationships with a few studios and the isolation meant I'd never really met anybody," Shyamalan said. "Instead of me just being a name, I was a guy in a room. The thing that's different about me is, when I go out with a script, I am looking for a green light, not some deal where they will develop for two years and then maybe make it."One palpable change in the film, Shyamalan said, was the decision to dial up the scare factor, thus inviting the R rating.
Rothman also craved an edgier version, which made Fox enticing to the director.
"Tom felt strongly about making this my first R-rated picture," Shyamalan said. "We talked about trying to get the kind of intensity that is present in 'Silence of the Lambs,' and the kind that Guillermo del Toro got in `Pan's Labyrinth.' The impact of the beautiful things in that movie wouldn't have landed as strongly if the film had not been R rated."
The failure of "Lady in the Water," and a making-of book that detailed Disney's rejection of the project, gave the impression that Shyamalan was not changeable. His decision to broaden his studio relationships was a step toward dispelling that.
"That is a misconception, and people who work with me know that I'm collaborative," Shyamalan said. "If you can give me a good idea that can help me to make a better movie, then there is no ego issue in taking that advice. Ultimately, this was a very positive process, and one that will ultimately help in making this movie the best it can be."
The deal gives Fox another piece for summer, 2008. The studio has so far earmarked the Eddie Murphy-starrer "Starship Dave" for a likely May 30 release.
Quote from: MacGuffin on March 06, 2007, 11:46:11 PM
"Because I'd been so lucky in making successful movies in the past, I was in monogamous relationships with a few studios and the isolation meant I'd never really met anybody," Shyamalan said.
Here's the problem with Shyamalan the writer, in a nutshell: he can say something like this and not realize how hilariously ironic it is. This is exactly how someone writes a movie about people called "Narfs" and expects everyone to take it seriously. At least if it was Joe Carnahan I would know that he got the joke.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117961127.html?categoryid=13&cs=1
UTV to co-produce Shyamalan film
Co. joins Fox on 'Happening'
By PATRICK FRATER
HONG KONG -- Indian movie and TV conglom UTV Motion Pictures has announced that it will co-produce M. Night Shyamalan's upcoming thriller "The Happening" with 20th Century Fox.
Pic was greenlit earlier this month by 20th Century Fox.
Company confirmed that pic will have a $57 million budget and said that "UTV and Fox will co-produce and enjoy global revenues in all media in perpetuity, equally."
"Night is an immensely talented writer–director. We have developed a great chemistry ever since our first conversation about two months back and I am really glad things moved fast to allow us to work together," Ronnie Screwvala, UTV prexy, said. "Ever since his 'Sixth Sense,' I have followed and admired his work. With 20th Century Fox, the No. 1 Movie Studio in the world and the reputation of having the best marketing and distribution set up in the U.S. and worldwide on board with us, this Sci-Fi thriller is going to get the best worldwide release."
Arrival of company from Shaymalan's country of birth does not change existing plans to lense "Happening" principally in Philadelphia – where he spent most of his childhood. UTV confirmed that pic is skedded for release by Fox in June or July 2008.
UTV, which co-produced Mira Nair's "The Namesake" released last week in North American cinemas, has relationships with three Hollywood majors, Fox, Disney and Sony.
Wahlberg to star in 'Happening'
Actor cast in new Shyamalan thriller
Source: Variety
Mark Wahlberg has been set to star in "The Happening," the thriller that M. Night Shyamalan will direct in August in Philadelphia.
Shyamalan set a spec deal for the spooky apocalyptic pic at the studio earlier this month.
Wahlberg will play a man who takes his family on the run when the world turns upside and a cataclysmic natural crisis threatens to end the world.
When he made the deal, Shyamalan brought back his "Unbreakable" and "Sixth Sense" producer Barry Mendel to produce with Sam Mercer, and also brought with him a co-financier in India-based UTV. UTV topper Ronnie Screwvala committed 50% of the film's $60 million budget, with Fox distributing worldwide except in India. It is the third recent film that UTV has co-financed at the studio, after the Mira Nair-directed "The Namesake," and the Chris Rock starrer "I Think I Love My Wife," both of which were distributed by Fox Searchlight.
Studio confirmed both Wahlberg and the date.
Twentieth Century Fox has carved out plans to release the film worldwide on Friday, June 13, 2008.
"Friday the 13th has very distinctive, global connotations, which make it the ideal launching pad for this frightening thriller," 20th domestic distribution president Bruce Snyder said in a statement.
At the time that Shyamalan made his deal with Fox, he'd already been making inroads to get Wahlberg aboard the film.
The actor, who just opened in "Shooter," is also getting in the ring with Matt Damon and director Darren Aronofsky on the Paramount film "The Fighter."
"Mark has a unique blend of charisma, humanity, authenticity and skillfulness as an actor," Shyamalan said. "All of which coalesced at this moment in his career, making him the perfect person to take on the role of Eliot Moore, the science teacher at the center of this event."
"The Happening" is such a terrible title.
"The Hackening"
I don't get it.
I hope the trailer features a shot of someone whispering, "it's happening."
the twist is that it never happened.
Quote from: Pubrick on March 30, 2007, 12:41:55 PM
the twist is that it never happened.
HA!
I wish the twist was that his last three movies never happened.
The Twist-endening
Deschanel to star in 'Happening'
Actress joins Wahlberg in Shyamalan film
Source: Variety
Zooey Deschanel has inked to star with Mark Wahlberg in M. Night Shyamalan's 20th Century Fox thriller "The Happening." Helmer's "Unbreakable" and "Sixth Sense" producer Barry Mendel will produce with Sam Mercer.
Pic tells the story of a man who takes his family on the run when an apocalyptical natural crisis threatens to end civilization; lensing starts in August in Philadelphia.
Deschanel's credits include the upcoming "Surf's Up," "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" with Brad Pitt, "Bridge to Terabithia," and "Failure to Launch." Thesp comes form a show biz family; father is cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, mother is actress Mary Jo Deschanel, as is sister Emily.
This is another douchebag like Tarantino... who the fuck keeps greenlighting his projects... I read about all these idiots and all of the sudden Ratner doesnt seem so bad.
Wait, I take that back.
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 30, 2007, 07:16:53 PM
mother is actress Mary Jo Deschanel, as is sister Emily.
"She my sister
and my mother!"
More evidence for my hypothesis that Variety is edited by dyslexic baboons.
Leguizamo cast in 'Happening'
Shyamalan to direct film for 20th Century Fox
Source: Variety
John Leguizamo has been cast in 20th Century Fox thriller "The Happening," directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Pic stars Mark Wahlberg as a man who takes his family on the run when a natural disaster threatens to end the world. Leguizamo plays his best friend.
Lensing starts next month in Philadelphia. Fox has scheduled a worldwide release date of Friday, June 13, 2008.
Leguizamo also stars in Spike TV's "The Kill Point," an eight-hour original miniseries that debuts Sunday.
This fall, he appears in the screen adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel "Love in the Time of Cholera," directed by Mike Newell and set to bow Nov. 16.
Also upcoming for Leguizamo is the release of indie "Where God Left His Shoes." Written and directed by Salvatore Stabile, pic -- which garnered buzz at this year's Tribeca Film Festival -- stars Leguizamo as a failed boxer struggling to find a job and apartment for his family on Christmas Eve in New York.
Leguizamo recently wrapped production on two independent films: "The Take," directed by Brad Furman, and "The Babysitters," written and directed by David Ross.
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Psst... We Know a Secret
Source: Phillyist.com
A trustworthy source has told us some plot details, and we couldn't resist passing them on to you. However, in the interests of saving you from spoilers (and there's a pretty big one here!), we're putting the details in white. Highlight... if you dare!!!
From our source:
Something is making people in Philadelphia go crazy and kill themselves, and they can't figure out what it is or why. In one scene, some people are driving through some farm land and they find out (on the radio, maybe?) that it's an airborne virus. Being out in the sticks, they think they're okay, until they drive by a farm and see a bunch of tree surgeons or farmers or something who've hanged themselves with garden hoses. They try to seal up all the air vents, windows, etc. in the car, but it's too late. The car stops, idles for a minute, and then accelerates straight into a tree. The two people in the front seat go through the window and die immediately. John Leguizamo's character was in the back seat and survives... but stumbles out of the car, picks up a shard of glass from the broken window, and slits his wrists.
i swiped it.
my only question is why would someone report that? they pretty much just described a scene with some very specific detail.. is it from the script? did they see them shooting it? it's like jim carrey's character from Liar Liar just HAD to tell us something he knows, without any reason other than "NOW YOU KNOW TOO!"
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"LET'S GO!"
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Not seeing it.
http://www.comingsoon.net/gallery/19636/hr_The_Happening_poster.jpg
Man the tag line is priceless:
We've sensed it.
We've seen the signs.
Now...it's happening.
hahah
it was better than
We Unbroke it.
We Ladied In The Water.
Now...It Happened.
I like the extremely vague title.
Quote from: Ravi on December 07, 2007, 12:27:00 PM
I like the extremely vague title.
It's a sequel to "That Time With the Guy at the Place".
I keep thinking it's going to be about performative art gatherings.
i keep thinking it's gonna be a biopic about the supremes.
The poster leads me to believe it's about people who ran out of gas.
...and fucking ran.
Quote from: modage on December 07, 2007, 10:48:11 AM
it was better than
We Unbroke it.
We Ladied In The Water.
Now...It Happened.
You forgot "We were Wide Awake" and "We Villaged it"
we kinda littled stuart too.
we will avatar the last airbender.
We expressed American... commercial.
We buried the secret of M. Night Shyamalan.
we prayed with anger for it.
we made shitty movies at age 8
Teaser Trailer here. (http://www.iklipz.com/MovieDetail.aspx?MovieID=9a23b518-c25e-44af-8582-77dcaf45b8c6)
lollll i was a background extra in this
The premisse is damn good. And Shyamalan is the man, so this can only be great.
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on February 07, 2008, 09:02:07 AM
And Shyamalan is the man, so this can only be great.
have you been dead for the last half-decade (at least) unbeknownst to yourself? the man is high on jenkum. and by that i mean the fermented remains of his own shit.
Quote from: picolas on February 07, 2008, 01:39:24 PM
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on February 07, 2008, 09:02:07 AM
And Shyamalan is the man, so this can only be great.
have you been dead for the last half-decade (at least) unbeknownst to yourself? the man is high on jenkum. and by that i mean the fermented remains of his own shit.
Nope, but I've been in love with his movies for some time now. It really puzzles me why people hate The Village and Lady In The Water so much. I really adore them, they strike me as near perfect films that talk about much more than it seems on a first look. Plus, visually, he's getting better and better. People really need to stop looking for the surprise ending and enjoy the ride, because I think he's at the top of his game.
By the way, Picolas, are where are you from? I'm asking this with sincere curiosity because it's been strange, with his last two movies that were killed by the critics in the US and raved in Europe (more The Village and less Lady In The Water). Am I right about this assumpion? It seems like Night is becoming a bit like Brian De Palma that way. What do you guys think?
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on February 07, 2008, 04:55:35 PM
...It really puzzles me why people hate The Village and Lady In The Water so much. I really adore them, they strike me as near perfect films that talk about much more than it seems on a first look. Plus, visually, he's getting better and better....
...I'm asking this with sincere curiosity because it's been strange, with his last two movies that were killed by the critics in the US and raved in Europe (more The Village and less Lady In The Water). Am I right about this assumpion? It seems like Night is becoming a bit like Brian De Palma that way. What do you guys think?
Yeah, I love that visually he's becoming more and more daring - finding inspiration from really unexpected sources that catch me off guard in every film. Lady In The Water might not be my favorite of his, but it's certainly the most exciting work he's done, visually.
I'd never thought about relating him to De Palma... but I like that connection. It's like he's tweaking with these very populist cinematic traits and disappearing further into them... I hope audiences keep giving them a chance.
Lady in thewhowhatandthewherenow is worse than i thought it was when i first saw it in the theater. and it's the worst movie ive ever had to sit thru in a theater.
and The Village seems like he wrote it as they were going along. "yeah um, let's see... we'll go ahead and have the retard discover the monster suit under the floor boards and uh, he'll escape to the forest and pretend he's the monster see.."
he even fills his holes with crap.
to summarize: he's pretty good.
But, see, The Village strikes me as much more than the guy putting a monster suit and all that stuff. It's about starting over, about being so disenchanted with the world, and scared of it. It's about isolation on a world that's much bigger, and how fear can lead to nervousness, and nervousness can lead to more fear and violence. As a foreigner, that movie seems to me a fascinating portrait of post-9/11 America, with everyone being scared and trying to close themselves to the outside threats. I don't know (and don't care, really, even though I'm sick of every critic saying every american movie now is really about 9/11) if that was intentional, but that's how I see it.
As john said, I'm just happy he keeps making movies, and let's hope audiences will help him do that, 'cause there's a lot more than meets the eye, even if the eye seems to meet a hole full of shit :wink:
i'm Canadian. for the record i loved The Sixth Sense, but the success of it really killed him creatively. everything he's made since then has HAD to include some combination of elements from that movie. that's just the half of it, though. he's also a TERRIBLE actor, which i feel means something. i don't want to go over everything i dislike about him as a director again.. i think it's pretty well covered in the director's chair thread. i think.
New Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHV9zgDcTp0)
It's gone. I don't get why studios remove trailers from You Tube - you'd think they'd want people to see them.
Quote from: Sleepless on February 15, 2008, 02:26:28 PM
It's gone. I don't get why studios remove trailers from You Tube - you'd think they'd want people to see them.
They do want people to see them, just on their own terms. Like paying for the movie it is attached to.
Quote from: MacGuffin on February 15, 2008, 10:21:30 AM
New Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHV9zgDcTp0)
New Trailer here. (http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/thehappening/)
title of the movie said TWICE in the trailer. cant be good.
by the way, my newest favorite title mentioned in the movie: "She's gone baby... gone."
they mentioned "the director from the sixth sense.... and.... signs". yup, this can't be good.
Okay... this new trailer sucks huge donkey balls of fire. I still think the movie's gonna be good though. I like the premisse (or at least what seems to be the premisse)
*spoils for this trailer garbage*
i gave it a chance. then "there appears to be an event happening." words need not be spoken.
I've never seen such bad acting in a fucking trailer.
If this was just any old film, then I would be really looking forward to it. But the fact it's Shyamalan does put me off. Sorry, I just can't help it. I would quite like to check this one out though. IMO the best film he's done was 'Unbreakable'. SS was obviously good and very different at the time. Signs and Village were huge donkey balls of fire, and I didn't even bother with LITW (although I saw about 10mins on TV and looked fucking appalling).
marky speaks as if someone has his nuts in a vice.
i liked the part where the dude was like "there appears to be an event happening," and when mark wahlberg asks "with whom?" what geeks!
New Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fwccFTJIdo)
I think this movie and "the wackness" should have switched titles...
I am curious what "R-Rated" Shymalan will be like...will his cameo involve full frontal nudity or something?
it's like a zombie movie where nothing happens.
Quote from: pete on May 05, 2008, 10:01:23 PM
it's like a zombie movie where nothing happens.
So it's a remake of Robin Campillo's They Came Back, then, if it's a zombie movie where nothing happens.
nerd
Quote from: picolas on February 07, 2008, 08:51:45 PM
he's also a TERRIBLE actor.
That shower scene in Lady was horrible.
the twist at the end is that it is a happening made by a bunch of theatre students...
Quote from: Alexandro on May 07, 2008, 10:30:07 AM
the twist at the end is that it is a happening made by a bunch of theatre students...
I'd sort of admire Shyamalan if the twist was that the whole movie was an Improv Everywhere performance.
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i read what the twist ending is about and it's fucking hilarious. it's on an april's fools , onion article level of ridiculousness.
i just read it, too.
:bravo:
Red Band Trailer here. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2VPLNab_mk)
Quote from: MacGuffin on May 19, 2008, 06:18:19 PM
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Night: I saw that video by Radiohead....what was it......the one where all the people are lying on the street?
reporter: Just?
N: yes, that one. great video. so then i set about making an entire movie explaining that one scene. and...*pause* you finally find out what that guy says at the end!
Quote from: samsong on May 19, 2008, 09:33:23 PM
i just read it, too.
:bravo:
Yeah, I wish we could just open this thread up to talk about that fucking ending.
do it! i can't find it.
from what i understand it's not exactly a twist and you find out long before the end
i mean, look at the script's original title and you'll know right away
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Shyamalan's Hollywood Horror Story, With Twist
By ALLISON HOPE WEINER; NY Times
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.
He also has not been able to undo his reputation in Hollywood as a talented filmmaker who will not play by studio rules. After the success of "The Sixth Sense," he criticized Disney executives, dared to compare his talent to Steven Spielberg's and Alfred Hitchcock's and has steadfastly asserted his reputation as an outsider by refusing to move from Philadelphia to Hollywood.
His outsider persona continued to work for him, so long as the films "The Sixth Sense," "Unbreakable" and "Signs" continued to make money. But when his films started to falter at the box office — his last movie, "Lady in the Water," was drubbed by critics and ignored by moviegoers — the Hollywood establishment's support began to wane.
That failure has put considerable pressure on his new film, "The Happening," an R-rated horror movie for Fox that opens on June 13. Another failure would harm the Shyamalan name and make it difficult for him to keep full control over his films.
But Mr. Shyamalan, who says he has become press shy, offers no apologies and believes that some of the criticism about him was largely based on his refusal to accept Hollywood norms.
"I have two options: conform to the paths that have been laid out prior to me or deal with it," he said emphatically. "So which one do you suggest I do? I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't denied those conventions to begin with."
His career illustrates one of the stubborn paradoxes of Hollywood: the film industry loves the myth of the auteur, the rugged individual filmmaker who plays by his own rules, until faced with the reality. Around the time that "The Sixth Sense" was released, this was a particularly potent idea, as studios tried to build brands around star directors like Quentin Tarantino and the Wachowski brothers (who made "The Matrix"), hoping their names would sell movies the way Hitchcock's once did.
But the studios also need to heed the brutal realities of the movie business. All of these directors have had high-profile stumbles that suggest moviegoers care more about what is on the screen than what is above the title. And unlike animated brands like Shrek, real-life characters like Mr. Shyamalan can prove difficult to work with.
"It never really worked," argues David Weitzner, the former head of worldwide marketing for Universal and an adjunct professor at the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. "It's pomposity on the part of studios to think that the public is going to respond to an advertising message that says to see the film because it's from the director of another film. It's stupid and to some degree, it's fueled by ego."
Even given their limited success with marketing brands, studio marketing departments continue to use the method to sell films. "They're marketing anything they can find to market because we're living in a time where it's so competitive and difficult," said Michael Taylor, chairman of the film and television production division at the School of Cinematic Arts.
Mr. Shyamalan, who will get his name above the title for "The Happening," still believes that a director's name on the marquee — one that is not Steven Spielberg's — can sell a blockbuster as easily as a star's can.
"The problem is the assumption that if I am selling the movie — because I'm selling me — that I'm being egotistical. If Will Smith did the same thing, it would be perceived very differently," he said. "You're supposed to be hidden if you're a director. That's a rule that who said in the movie business?"
Born in India, Mr. Shyamalan was raised in suburban Philadelphia by his parents, both doctors who knew little about the film industry. He attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, then made two commercially unsuccessful films, "Praying With Anger" (1992) and "Wide Awake" (1998), before selling his screenplay for "The Sixth Sense" to Disney for $3 million. The movie, made for about $40 million, grossed more than $600 million worldwide.
Since then, the numbers have been going in the wrong direction. After "Signs" grossed more than $400 million worldwide, "The Village" took in only $255 million. "Lady in the Water," which opened in 2006, had a budget of about $75 million and made less than $70 million.
As the box office started to stumble, the elements that had made his movies different — the Pennsylvania settings, the themes about faith, the unexpected endings — became a basis for criticism.
Mr. Shyamalan broke off his relationship with Disney when he made "Lady in the Water" at Warner Brothers, part of Time Warner. But then he committed the greatest sin of all — he criticized a meeting with Disney studio executives, Nina Jacobson, Dick Cook and Oren Aviv, in a book by Michael Bamberger, "The Man Who Heard Voices."
In the book, which received a huge amount of press, Mr. Shyamalan accused Ms. Jacobson of not giving his "Lady in the Water" script "a truthful reading" and said that he thought that it had been rejected because Disney "no longer valued individualism."
He also contended that despite Disney's misgivings about making "Lady in the Water," it had ultimately agreed to make the film, but he had refused the offer because he felt that it no longer had faith in him.
The Hollywood establishment was outraged by the book and Mr. Shyamalan's public recitation of what are considered very private matters. (Disney executives, through a spokesman, declined to comment for this article.)
The book was slaughtered by reviewers, who focused some of their harshest criticisms on the subject. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it sycophantic and embarrassing. "Who is M. Night Shyamalan? The point is that you're supposed to know already," Ms. Maslin wrote.
The good news for Mr. Shyamalan is that many in Hollywood still believe his name can sell tickets. It helps that he has a reputation as an economical filmmaker, someone who comes to the set prepared and who comes in on time and on budget — all rare commodities in Hollywood.
"I respect Night as a filmmaker and loved working with him," said Alan F. Horn, president of Warner Brothers Entertainment, which produced "Lady in the Water. "I supported the premise of the movie and what he was trying to accomplish, but sometimes movies work and sometimes they don't. I wouldn't blame the book because I don't think enough people read the book."
Twentieth Century Fox, part of News Corporation, hired him to write and direct "The Happening" in part because it is a return to the kind of scary movie brand that made him famous.
"Night in conjunction with this material is a fantastic pairing," said Hutch Parker, now chairman of New Regency, who worked on "The Happening" while at Fox. " 'The Happening' does draw back in its intentions to what Night first did in 'The Sixth Sense.' It speaks more directly and clearly to that genre than some of his previous films."
Mr. Shyamalan is also directing "Avatar: The Last Airbender," a big tent-pole movie based on a Nickelodeon cartoon, scheduled to be released in 2010 for Paramount.
"I obviously did my homework and checked him out before deciding to make the movie. It's a very important movie for us," said John Lesher, president of the Paramount Film Group. "He's collaborative, open to suggestions and wants to make a hit movie. He's open in the right way. You want a filmmaker who has passion and want him to defend why he believes something is correct."
Mr. Shyamalan admits to being slightly more open now. In an effort to dispel perceptions in Hollywood that he is arrogant, he has spent more time in Los Angeles recently. But while saying that he is sorry for any hurt feelings at Disney, he still does not understand why many in Hollywood are so critical of him for turning down Disney's offer.
"You'd want me to take the money? You'd want me to whore out. That's what they wanted me to do," he said. "You know how hard it is not to do the conservative thing out there?"
I noticed they're stressing that this is his first R rated film in the tv ads.
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Quote from: bigideas on June 03, 2008, 10:56:26 PM
I noticed they're stressing that this is his first R rated film in the tv ads.
Never a good sign...It's like the dice...that's really all they've got.
lol
Quote from: MacGuffin on June 05, 2008, 06:30:11 PM
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i saw this actually, in real life. i can't remember if it was the Grand St stop on the D or someplace else though. i remember thinking "that's awesome" and the internets thought that too.
A sadder but wiser M. Night Shyamalan
After the very public drowning of 'Lady in the Water,' the chastened but still upbeat director returns with a tense thriller, 'The Happening.'
By Rachel Abramowitz, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
MALVERN, PA. -- HE DESCRIBES the experience of making "Lady in the Water," the biggest flop of his career, as something akin to stripping off all his clothes and running outside to have the world collectively laugh at him.
But in a good way.
M. Night Shyamalan, the 37-year-old film director who shot to fame with "The Sixth Sense" in 1999, is not talking about large-scale humiliation but rather personal empowerment -- the freedom that comes from giving up concern about other people's expectations.
"My hope for the movie was a personal one," he says. "I'm sick of feeling like I hope the cool people like me. I hope the teachers like me. You know that thing you do when you're in school? And you're in your mid-30s and you go, 'I'm sick of feeling this way.' And you kind of like have this urge to take all your clothes off and run outside and say, 'Make fun of me. Are we done? Is that it? Good, let's go on with our lives.'
"That really is what happened and I feel like I've been cleansed in some way."
Just weeks before the opening of Shyamalan's new movie, "The Happening," a phantasmagoriaof paranoia that arrives on Friday, the director is sitting in the private dining room of Creighton Farm, his little equivalent of Skywalker Ranch. His business offices and editing suite are set in a colonial stone home on this bucolic spread of Pennsylvania land. Across the walls, in chronological order, are the posters from his movies, from the little-seen early ones -- "Praying With Anger" and "Wide Awake" -- to the better-known -- "The Sixth Sense," "Signs" and "The Village."
Everything about Shyamalan the person appears pristine, precise, aesthetic. He's extremely thin, in a white shirt and jeans. A private chef -- who cooks for everyone who works at Creighton -- has served an immaculate lunch (Thai chicken, wasabi mashed potatoes) in tiny portions, each the size of a baby's fist. Yet the director also exudes a disconcerting mixture of warmth, guilelessness and confidence -- though not the walk-on-water sunny assurance he had in conversation four years ago. A vague soupçon of chagrin hangs over him. He's been through a complete cycle of media glorification and diminution, and emerged chastened but certainly not bowed. He's also, perhaps more important, not embittered.
Shyamalan occupies an unusual place in the pop-culture pantheon. He's a writer-director, an auteur of popcorn films, who has turned his own idiosyncratic brew of horror, psychology and spirituality into a global brand. Most of the directors who've come of age with him have divided themselves into two camps: the entertainers and the artistes. The entertainers -- Gore Verbinski, Sam Raimi, Doug Liman, Christopher Nolan, Bryan Singer -- have almost all gravitated to big franchise fare, the juggernauts that Hollywood prizes most, such properties as "Spider-Man," "Batman" and "X-Men." The artistes, most of whom write, include Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson, David O. Russell and Quentin Tarantino. Most have made occasional missteps into insular self-importance and almost none has reached as broad an audience (nor made as much money) as Shyamalan.
The downside is steep
UNTIL NOW, Shyamalan has gotten a lot of approbation -- and flak -- for having a foot in both camps. He's received two Oscar nominations, but when he misfires, the fan base goes ballistic rather than simply wrinkle its nose in disappointment, as might happen for another director. And, oh yes, like Alfred Hitchcock, Shyamalan puts himself in small roles in most of his movies -- though his acting is less inspired than his filmmaking.
If Shyamalan had been just another writer-director trying to tell original stories, "Lady in the Water," released in 2006, would be considered just another arty misstep on the tortuous path of originality. But the film, a fractured fairy tale about a water nymph sent to awaken a mortal to make the world a better place, engendered outright vitriol. As Manohla Dargis wrote in the New York Times, it was unclear what the nymph was trying to get the humans to hear, "the crash of waves, the songs of the sirens, the voice of God -- until we realize that, of course, we're meant to cup our ear to an even higher power: Mr. Shyamalan."
The director's distress was amplified by the fact that he'd cooperated with a tell-all book by Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger, "The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale and Lost." The words "and Lost" were added to the paperback edition after the film failed commercially. Although the book is fairly sycophantic, Shyamalan is portrayed as veering between arrogance and self-doubt with a huge chunk of mono-obsession thrown in, not unlike so many other directors.
In truth, he comes off infinitely more humane than most of the directors that appear in, say, Peter Biskind's histories of Hollywood, "Easy Riders, Raging Bulls" and "Down and Dirty Pictures." But one incident recounted in "The Man Who Heard Voices" became notorious -- playing out in newspapers and magazines across the country. That's when Shyamalan broke off with his longtime corporate benefactor, the Walt Disney Co., after executives expressed concerns about "Lady in the Water."
Not only was it unusual to have an actual airing of creative differences, but the moral of the story ran counter to the myth of the filmmaker as the guy who teaches the bean-counters about risk and ingenuity. In this case, the suits turned out to be right. The film was flawed. Schadenfreude careened around the studios like the metal ball in a pinball machine.
Now, in retrospect, Shyamalan cops to a certain amount of innocence in letting his personality all hang out. "He didn't misquote me or anything like that. We both were naive in terms of thinking that being open is the best way. Don't play the game."
The media contretemps was stressful and upsetting, but he tries to be stoic about the vicissitudes of Hollywood fame. "The love-hate relationship that goes to love for a while and goes to hate for a while and then goes back to love. . . . You can let yourself get snapped and break in that process," he says. "I've watched so many friends going through it. People I admire have gone through it, you know, on much worse scales. The only answer I've thought of in terms of how to handle the [fallout] is be truthful of myself and consistent as long as they let me make movies."
And he has one more mantra: "Don't ever fall to the temptation of 'I'm going to chase you as my audience,' " he says, noting, "As soon as you do that, the system broke you."
Chalk it up to inspiration
ONE COULD think of "The Happening" as a calculated rebound from "Lady in the Water," a genre-movie chaser as a safe follow-up to a risky film that flopped. (Indeed, Shyamalan will soon have his own franchise -- he's about to embark on an ambitious three-picture cinematic rendition of the Nickelodeon cartoon "Avatar: The Last Airbender.")
Yet, Shyamalan insists he doesn't operate that way. In fact, he wrote "The Happening" before "Lady in the Water" was even finished.
He was driving to New York City, which is a couple of hours from where he lives in Pennsylvania. "You get into a kind of hazy half-sleep. And this idea kind of bloomed and it was big. The plot, like you could feel it. Sometimes the thing that makes me make a movie is a character. Sometimes it's a scene. And sometimes it's a structure. And this one had a structure to it which is really, again, another really wonderful moment if it happens."
The image in his head was a lot like the one that is on the poster, a forbidding road with abandoned cars and people mysteriously absent. "It's 90 minutes of just straight paranoia," Shyamalan says, like Hitchcock's "The Birds," in which birds inexplicably begin attacking human beings.
It's one of those movies where the less you know, the scarier it is, and "The Happening" begins with a bang: People stop frozen in New York City's Central Park and then begin inexplicably killing themselves with a kind of stunned matter-of-factness. Is it an airborne toxin? Global warming gone vicious? The mass psychosis spreads like a virus through the Northeast, sowing numbed panic as humans scamper to outrun the threat.
It's Shyamalan's first R-rated film and it was the studio, 20th Century Fox, that encouraged him not to stint on the violence and blood. "Night has an uncanny gift at exploring the recesses of the human psyche," says outgoing studio Vice Chairman Hutch Parker, and in this film, particularly, "the psychology of fear. We felt that the R rating would allow Night to go beyond the limits he explored so far, breaking new ground for himself and for the audience."
Yet, the terror is wrapped up in a reconciliation drama between a young couple played by Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel. "It's a normal day in their kind-of-troubled marriage," Shyamalan says. "And then this thing happens on this day. And if you got to the point where you knew in the next minute you were going to be dead. You both know it; you're not fighting it anymore, it's a fait accompli. You get one last conversation. What do you say to each other? That's what the movie ultimately is about."
Shyamalan famously identifies himself as a family man. He met his wife, Bhavna, while he was still at NYU, and during their first year of marriage they lived in his parents' house. Now they have two daughters. What would he say to his wife if they had only a few minutes to live? Shyamalan has to pause a moment.
"The good thing for me is that my wife, she genuinely makes me a better person," he says finally. "She's not just a light, surface person. You will never have a conversation about what someone looks like or anything. It's just not the conversations that we have. They're always the conversation that you have at the end. I think the strength of the relationship is that we always are aware. That's why it's not so unusual for me to think about if it all went away. Because you're always thinking about that, you know?"
However, at the last moment, he says he would not try to be too profound. That's the Shyamalan twist to this particular story.
"I probably would have a real casual conversation," he says. "One last laugh. One moment about the irony of life . . . that what we thought was so important was so, so not important."
Happening Needed R Rating
M. Night Shyamalan, writer-director of the upcoming paranoid thriller The Happening, told reporters that there was no way around its R rating.
In the film, an unexplained event compels people to commit suicide in often grisly ways. Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo and Ashlyn Sanchez star as a quartet of Philadelphians trying to stay one step ahead of the deadly threat, which could be man-made, a force of nature or the result of an accident.
"I got an R on two other movies, on The Sixth Sense and The Village," Shyamalan said during a press conference in New York on June 9. "I got an R initially, for the intensity of certain scenes, and I needed to pull back a sound effect. We were right on the line, and I could always just pull back a sound effect and re-submit it, and they'd go, 'Oh, it's much better.' And all I did was take out some sound effects. It's always the impact; what you emotionally feel is different than what I actually showed."
But on The Happening, Shyamalan couldn't dodge the R. "The screenplay that I wrote, there was just no way to do it any other way," he said. "One of the movies I was thinking about was Pan's Labyrinth. I was thinking about that a lot when I made the decision, because I didn't want to make it as an agenda. You want to make an organic decision about: What does the material want to do? And when I thought about Pan's Labyrinth, which had visceral moments of violence juxtaposed against the softer kind of things that are going on against the canvas; it gave it authority and some teeth."
Shyamalan added that a PG-13 version of Guillermo del Toro's Pan would not have worked as well. "It wouldn't have stayed with me the way that movie has stayed with me," he said. "And so [on The Happening] it felt like the right balance of things. It was exciting, and it was disturbingly easy to shoot all those scenes. I had such a fun time." The Happening opens June 13.
This was actually quite crowded for 2:00 in the afternoon... I'd thought the popcorn bunch had given up on Shyamalan.
If they hadn't yet, they certainly will now. Audience reaction upon exiting the theater ranged from apathetic to vocally displeased.
I kinda like it. For every reason that I defended Shyamalan before. He seems to be furthering his own interests and fascinations, in the guise of a popcorn film.
His commentary on man and nature is really too simplistic to recommend... but there's a continual stillness, and quiet, to many of the scenes that most mainstream directors would never attempt.
If you already don't like the guy, nothing in this film will changed your mind - in fact, it will only emphasize your complaints.
They are hyping the R-rating quite a bit, and there isn't much to this that pushes it past a rough PG-13.
Also: Zooey Deschanel fans be warned, I don't think I've ever seen her devoid of this much charisma or value.
fuck. I saw it. it happened.
This was astounding! Even better than the remake of The Wicker Man. I don't know what Shyamalan was trying to do with this (especially with his direction of the cast), but it sure is fascinating.
can't wait for the youtube highlights.
does Night have a significant acting role in this one?
the other day Signs was on at a friend's house and he goes, "check out this intense acting." it was the part where Night gives 'the look' getting into his suv when Mel is in the drugstore.
Quote from: bigideas on June 14, 2008, 03:49:22 PM
does Night have a significant acting role in this one?
it's a voice cameo. he says "hello?"
MOVIE
IS
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AMAZING
Quote from: I Love a Magician on June 14, 2008, 11:12:15 PM
MOVIE
IS
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AMAZING
I stared at that for entirely too long.
SPOILERS:
Not a fan. Although it was the first Shyamalan I've been able to sit through since Unbreakable (still his best in my opinion). Thought the concept was very good, although they gave a lame "explanation" way too early on, and the fact they very early on we learned it was just confined to the North-East sort of lowered the stakes to the point where you didn't really care - the trailer and the hype set it up as a film about the whole of humanity - and the PLANET - so in that respect the film was a let down. Also, I thought the acting was terrible (Leguizamo aside - he was VERY good). I imagine a lot of it is the naff dialogue "with whom?", but I can see Shyamalan telling Wahlberg and Deschanel to be less intense, more subtle, but it just came off as bland. By the time we got to that running through the fields sequence with the gunshots I could barely stomach any more of Marky's bland reaction shots. The acting was just awful, and both leads we know are capable of so much more. Shyamalan is capable of being a good director, but he just doesn't seem to embrace balance at all. The whole film - character wise felt very flat. Leaving the packed theatre, everyone else was quite vocal about their dislike of the movie, but there were no empty seats. I felt this movie has some similarities to The Mist, which even though I wasn't *that* keen on, I still thought was far, far superior to this. Even with CGI bugs. It just handled the situation better - that you didn't know what was happening outside where we are. Maybe Shyamalan just wanted to give us as much information up front so that it didn't come across as a bad twist ending, but I think it really lessened the impact of the movie, and of the conflict and the stakes involved. To be honest, after Signs and The Village, I didn't think I would bother with another one of his films. The premise, and what he had said about The Happening got me interested, but sadly I don't think he'll ever get me interested in anything he does again.
Scary Movie 5: The Happening
SPOILERS
M. Night Shymalan has made the funniest entry in the Scary Movie series by keeping the visual gags to a minimum and ramping up the situational and verbal comedy aspects that the past four have left out. Scary Movie 5: The Happening has everything a great parody movie needs a wonderful opening scene that sets us up for what will surely be the funniest 90 minutes of Summer '08. The reaction shots from the cast rival Jason Bateman and Micahel Cera's best work on "Arrested Development." The whole production looks stunning and Night's eye for composition are still some of his strongest points, but it's the way he handles his actors that really caught me. In a bit of inspired comedic casting Mark Wahlberg is our hero through this canon of classic Hitchcock motifs and like Charlie Sheen before him, Wahlberg turns in some of his best work since Boogie Nights. You can see and hear the joy in the actor's voice as he spits out comedy gold at every turn. The "You should care more about science" exchange may go down as one of the great moments in comedy history right next to 'Who's on first?' and the drop off scene in "The Big Lebowski." The death scenes are some of the best in the series even topping the stabbing of Carmen Electra's implants. The 'follow the gun scene' has some great moments from the extra blood spurting that is obviously a nod to "Ichii the Killer" and "Kill Bill" even the sound effect is different for each successive shot from the same gun, possibly an 'in' joke referencing the grindhouse horror of old. Making the villain 'wind' is Mr. Night Shymalan's finest bit of writing since Sam Jackson's reveal as the mastermind in 'Unbreakable.' I had thought Night had run out of ideas after his last two efforts but in the comedy/ satire genre Shymalan has found his true calling and one can only hope he chooses to continue on this path. I loved Scary Movie 5: The Happening and would reccomend it to anyone looking to laugh and cry tears of joy as you watch a cinematic masterpiece that I will be proud to place on my DVD shelf. Thank you Mr. Night Shymalan you have returned with great success, let's hope you come back for 6.
Scary Movie 5: The Happening receives:
94% out of 100 :yabbse-thumbup: :yabbse-thumbup:
Quote from: SeanMalloy on June 16, 2008, 12:36:02 PMNight's eye for composition are still some of his strongest points
As funny as this was to read, I'd say this line is just wrong, even in a text with this general tone. Okay, I'm a fan, and even though I think this is a lesser work, I still enjoyed it enough, and if there's something that he's great at is composition. I can understand people trashing some of his characteristics (dialogue and some scenes require a lot of being into the tone of the movie, and if you're not, they'll just seem stupid) but the way he wrokd the camera, the set pieces, the close-ups... he's great at that - yes, I thought the "follow the gun" scene was one of this year's best. And fuck it, he not only doesn't give a shit about the current fashion of trashing his movies (in America anyway) but he has the balls to go further and farther ahead: he tries to make a movie where AIR is scary. The fucking air.
Quote from: ElPandaRoyal on June 16, 2008, 05:59:22 PM
he tries to make a movie where AIR is scary. The fucking air.
He obvisouly ripped that from the South Park episode Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow.
Spoilers:
it's a shame because wahlberg and deschanel are so horribly miscast that there really is never any hope for the film. Leguizamo does his best with what he's given, but it's not a very large part. If the film had centered around his character there might've been hope that it could at least be watchable. He does his best with his last scene attempting to distract a female passenger from the horrors outside, but since we were never introduced to this character before you don't really care whether she's freaked or not.
some parts are played for laughs (the idiotic military guy, wahlbergs apology to the plastic tree) which don't really fit the tone of the film at all. the only scene in the film that created any sort of tension wasn't due to the threat of wind but from the barrel of a shotgun poking through a window (which for some reason stops shooting when wahlberg steps out in the open). i still really want to like shyamalan, and there are a lot of things in here that prove he's still an effective director. I particularly enjoyed the quick opening sequence (which was sadly overexposed in all of the trailers). Lady in the Water at least felt like a failure on an EPIC scale. this was just bland and predictable, which is worse.
Quote from: ddiggler on June 16, 2008, 10:15:14 PM
Spoilers:
it's a shame because wahlberg and deschanel are so horribly miscast that there really is never any hope for the film. Leguizamo does his best with what he's given, but it's not a very large part. If the film had centered around his character there might've been hope that it could at least be watchable. He does his best with his last scene attempting to distract a female passenger from the horrors outside, but since we were never introduced to this character before you don't really care whether she's freaked or not.
some parts are played for laughs (the idiotic military guy, wahlbergs apology to the plastic tree) which don't really fit the tone of the film at all. the only scene in the film that created any sort of tension wasn't due to the threat of wind but from the barrel of a shotgun poking through a window (which for some reason stops shooting when wahlberg steps out in the open). i still really want to like shyamalan, and there are a lot of things in here that prove he's still an effective director. I particularly enjoyed the quick opening sequence (which was sadly overexposed in all of the trailers). Lady in the Water at least felt like a failure on an EPIC scale. this was just bland and predictable, which is worse.
Couldn't agree more with this post....really an amazingly rediculous movie and not in a good way at all. Should have listened to you guys and my friends and stayed away.
Quote from: Gamblour. on February 19, 2008, 06:54:11 PM
I've never seen such bad acting in a fucking trailer.
I've never seen such bad acting in a fucking movie.
This was wrong in too many ways. I think Shyamalan can do much much better than this. I even Liked Lady in the Water. I don't wanna dwell on it but it was painful to watch.
This movie was fucking terrible. I would have rather watched a 20 minute segment on recyclying than sit through 91 minutes of Shyamalan's attempt to "go green." Ugh!
I just saw this. Acting was bad. The film itself is watchable and entertaining. I guess this fucker realized his twists were so bad that he decided not to even have one.
i'm sort of watching this right now just to see how terrible it is and i don't think i'm going to make it.. the acting is unforgivable. unbearably AWKWARD in every scene from every single person. the writing doesn't help at all (it's horrifically bad too), but M Night is clearly telling people to do stupid things all the time. really specific stupid things. like "after that line, open your eyes REALLY wide!" or "wave your hands and arms a lot as you explain things." it's ed woodian.
*SPOILERS*
M. Night has always been better at concept than character, so this film was par for the course for him. It's just that the underlying 'message' in that concept clutters what would have made for a better film. It would be okay not to give any explaination and let the happening happen. But M. Night is on point when he has scenes where no dialogue is said and events play out for you to see or even hear. It's what I think he's best at and what I can admire him for. From the opening rooftop rain of people, to the pass the gun scene, to the tree hangings, the car crash, and the mower; they are all great deaths and the film's strength. He even makes wind a character and, yes, scary. If he could have scaled himself back, or even rewritten himself, he would made for a film with more suspense.
wicker man-esque highlight reels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX8U5JUBD3g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9wy4xSIsTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ugo_Npswx0
Shyamalan Unpacks The Happening
Director M. Night Shyamalan offered insights into his SF thriller film The Happening, which arrives on DVD this week, in a conference call with reporters. The film stars Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, John Leguizamo and Spencer Breslin in a story about people trying to figure out what is causing an epidemic of sudden suicide. The film made $161 million worldwide. Following are Shyamalan's thoughts about key elements in the movie.
"You deserve this." When Mark Wahlberg passes into the Clear Hill community, there's a sign that announces, "You deserve this." Shyamalan said that the ironic motto embodies his own disdain for encroaching suburbia. "I've always been a little bit averse to the whole sprawling development stuff, where they take farmland and they take all these forests and drop 90 identical homes on a hillside," he said. "For many reasons, then, some of them would seem odd, but even in terms of individuality and personal expression, I love driving by someone's home and being able to know something about them, that there's no other home like that particular home. However little or large, it's something of an extension of the human being. And then to spread in that fashion the way we do now, so hundreds and hundreds of acres are taken up, and then we put identical homes and everyone just goes into their cubicle without personal expression and without regard to what we're doing to nature, it just seems we're going into a soulless place. ...
"I'd seen the sign once for one of these developments: ... [the] "Make your dreams come true," "You've worked hard," ... "You've earned this" kind of feeling. And so it stuck in my head when I was making that one ... [to] see if we could play on the words a little bit."
An Inconvenient coincidence? Shyamalan wrote the environmentally themed Happening before Al Gore's global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth came out. But he said that he was amazed at how the documentary coincided with some of his movie. "I saw it after I wrote it, and I did feel a little bit like this was the fictional science fiction version of that," he said. "That documentary [about] 'How can we continue to think that we're not a threat to the planet?' If we don't change our ways within 100 years, any rational person can see that there'll be nothing left if we continue to do what we're doing."
Surprise, surprise! How does Shyamalan keep his films fresh? "I think that is the bane of being an original filmmaker," he said. "You always get the 'I thought I was getting ... .' And then you get judged by that, as opposed to, well, there should be an assumption that you don't know what you're getting. And then please don't use another movie of someone else or even my movies to have an expectation about what you're going to see. ... Let's say I Am Legend and The Happening are similar movies in terms of their subject [matter]--end-of-the-world movies, that kind of thing--where one ends with man saving the day. Mine ends with man being the villain. That in and of itself is a specific choice that is important to me as the author, but contrary to the expectations of the human being who came and sat in the multiplex."
Scare tactics. "I have a creative autism or something that just makes me focus in on the thing that is getting me really excited," Shyamalan said. "I can understand intellectually how it would be that wind might not be naturally scary to somebody, but if I told you that there's a gas in the wind, and it's coming and that you have to shut the doors and close the windows and make sure no air gets in, I can see a million variations of how that would be scary to me. I love taking something innocuous and then, by the end of the movie, making you nervous about it and imbuing it with ominous or portentous qualities."
Film mentors. "I feel a little bit like a dinosaur in this day and age of filmmaking, maybe momentarily not knowing whether my accent means anything to anybody," Shyamalan said. "But where it came from, this idea of Kurosawa or even Kubrick or Hitchcock, those three guys [have] their quiet tension that they do with the frame, as opposed to stimuli scares or suspense. I'm not naturally the stimuli suspense guy. ... I don't think in terms of when I think of an alien invasion I think of hearing about it, and then seeing a couple of lights on a TV, as opposed to all these amazing filmmakers, I'm sure like Spielberg and Jackson and obviously Lucas and all these guys, James Cameron, they would all do the spectacular version of it. But my mind never goes there."
Effect of Green Effect. The original script was called The Green Effect and centered more on an environmental crisis. "In that draft, it was much larger scale, so it's happening all over the world instantaneously, so it was very apocalyptic," Shyamalan said. "And that one, as most of my instincts do start out, was pretty dark. I remember I had calculated--I have it all scribbled down in some notebook somewhere--but I calculated the population of how much I wanted left on the planet when this was all done, to kind of start over in an innocuous number of the species so we could have another chance at repopulating the correct way again, and it was something like .0006 percent or something. So I had calculated down how many people that would leave in each country before the environment stopped and said, 'OK, now we're back at equilibrium.'"
The R Factor. This is one of the few movies of Shyamalan's where a lot of the violence is shown and marks the director's first R rating. "The screenplay I wrote was just an impossibility to shot as a PG-13 movie, as my other movies have been," Shyamalan said. "And, to some extent, the movies that I've been inspired by in my life--like The Exorcist, The Godfather and others--there is a visceralness to them that I hadn't really let myself go there, except on occasion, like in the stabbing scene in The Village or a few moments in Sixth Sense or the fingers getting cut off in Signs. ... You know, the two sides of me, for whatever reason, are this kind of really naive 'Santa Claus is real' side and then the 'Oh, my God!' I know how to throw that lady off the roof of the building and make it really disgusting. I don't know why they both live in the same head, but they're there."
Knocking hot dogs. There's a rant about hot dogs in the film. "I'm an All-American boy, I'm a big cheeseburger and hot dog guy and all of that stuff," Shyamalan said. "You know, I'm not allowed to take my kids [for junk food], because my wife is vegetarian and all healthy and all that stuff. But occasionally [I do]. I actually went to visit an orphanage in India recently, and she's like, 'Where are you going with them?' I said, 'I'm taking them out.' 'Where are you going?' 'Well, we're going to McDonalds.' And she said, 'What, what did you say?' And I said, 'I'm taking them to McDonalds.' I took the whole orphanage to McDonalds. So I have a great affinity for all that stuff. I do think they get a bad rap, man."
Personal reflections? What movie is most like the writer/director? "I've been really different from The Sixth Sense to Unbreakable, and if this was a therapy session--which these often are--I would say that Unbreakable and Lady in the Water are the truest versions of me, and the other movies are parts of me."
More blood on DVD. The DVD extras contains some of the more violent scenes that needed to be cut from the film. "You see some of that on the DVD," Shyamalan said. "I'm anal about the experience being the one that I frame-for-frame decided was the best experience, with the balance of everything I just did, but I really wanted you to see those sequences that were more visceral, that ended up for me feeling like trauma to the audience, that they couldn't recover from them, but powerful. So those are on the DVD."
Quote from: picolas on October 07, 2008, 08:57:13 PM
wicker man-esque highlight reels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX8U5JUBD3g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9wy4xSIsTE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ugo_Npswx0
With the exception of the last clip (which is included in the second one as well), these clips don't work the same way the Wicker-man clips do. There's a lot of the intentional humor included, which takes away from the non-intentional.
this is true. but i found Zoey Deschanel's awkward maneuver putting her cell phone in her purse and then the little hand-under-the-chin gesture unintentionally hilarious. what terrible terrible directing/acting.
Quote from: squints on October 08, 2008, 01:44:37 PM
this is true. but i found Zoey Deschanel's awkward maneuver putting her cell phone in her purse and then the little hand-under-the-chin gesture unintentionally hilarious. what terrible terrible directing/acting.
right. the intentional humor in the happening is terrible. and that cell stuff is bad in every possible way. when i saw this in the theatre i couldn't believe it. it was like seeing acting in the worst mexican soap opera imaginable.
oh yeah, and he makes the wind scary? really, was it scary for anyone? was people on the edge of their seats in that scene? because I was mad at this film for being so stupid. this guy seemed to think that because he says so, now the wind is scary, because "it has gas in it"...jesus, just thinking about it I get angry again.
*SPOILERS*Quote from: Alexandro on October 08, 2008, 01:53:29 PMoh yeah, and he makes the wind scary? really, was it scary for anyone? was people on the edge of their seats in that scene? because I was mad at this film for being so stupid. this guy seemed to think that because he says so, now the wind is scary, because "it has gas in it"...jesus, just thinking about it I get angry again.
There's the scene where they decide to break off into smaller groups and the wind is shown gradually blowing the grass as it's approaching behind them. I found it to be the same as a killer coming up behind the unsuspecting heroes, because once they realize it, there's that panic for them to run.
Quote from: MacGuffin on October 08, 2008, 03:11:05 PM
*SPOILERS*
Quote from: Alexandro on October 08, 2008, 01:53:29 PMoh yeah, and he makes the wind scary? really, was it scary for anyone? was people on the edge of their seats in that scene? because I was mad at this film for being so stupid. this guy seemed to think that because he says so, now the wind is scary, because "it has gas in it"...jesus, just thinking about it I get angry again.
There's the scene where they decide to break off into smaller groups and the wind is shown gradually blowing the grass as it's approaching behind them. I found it to be the same as a killer coming up behind the unsuspecting heroes, because once they realize it, there's that panic for them to run.
My thoughts exactly. One thing is not like the film, but if you actually enjoy it, you'll get scared. Because you saw those horrible deaths before, you know what wind can do and, worst of all, you know all that except when/if it attacks, because you can't see it. It's not "because he says so", it's because that's what happens in the movie. It's all legitimate to not like it, or even get angry if you want to, but nothing in "The Happening" happens any differently than it does in other movies. You have a threat, it can kill, people get scared. As simple as that.
yes, i saw the movie. i will never forget that scene. the idea must have sounded great, but you have to earn that moment, and this movie never earns anything.
Quote from: Alexandro on October 08, 2008, 01:53:29 PM
right. the intentional humor in the happening is terrible. and that cell stuff is bad in every possible way. when i saw this in the theatre i couldn't believe it. it was like seeing acting in the worst mexican soap opera imaginable.
Shyamalan's attempts at humor have always been pretty sketchy to me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It might even be the biggest gimmick he lifts from Spielberg, using a very commonplace sense of humor to diffuse these extraordinary situations. And, in Shyamalan's case, it usually seems unnecessary because it just doesn't work. The main exception to me is Unbreakable... or maybe Bruce Willis just delivers it better.
I still don't think this films a failure, I just think it's his most introverted effort yet. I'm not entirely sure his intention was even to be scary, rather than bewilder. What stuck with me is the calmness he instills into everything. The film is quiet and still in a way no other big-budgeted studio effort has been this year and I appreciated it.
the sixth sense and unbreakable have almost no attemps at humor. they deal with pain and suffering and regret, and they work better because of it. signs is the first time he uses a character (phoenix) as a comic relief. form then on he has become more and more inclined to balance his films with humor, but I don't think it's working at all.
i admire what he tries to do. lack of ambition has never been his problem. and i undertsand the "from a to b" point you guys are making about why the wind scene it's supposed to be scary, i knew that the first time i saw it too. i seriously doubt he was aiming to make an absurd film on porpuse, but that's exactly what he did. i remember one scene when a large group of people leaves a train for some reason, they all get out and suddenly every person on that train is gone in cars (except the main characters of the film of course) even though there was no reason for anyone to have cars in the middle of some random town in the first place!! the film is full with ludicrous crap like that. his reasoning seemed to be that the effect was more important than the cause. that the fact the characters were suddenly all by themselves in the middle of nowhere was enough, he didn't need to explain how come they were suddenly alone even though it made no sense. the film proposes a logic and then ignores it. the wind has gas in it and they most outrun it? and they do? really? his thinking seems to be: "oh, people will be on the edge of their seats because they can't see the wind", but all I was thinking was: "man, this is awful".
back when lady in the water came out i was one of the three people on the planet who liked it. i thought it was an inspired anarchic film. it was about fantasy being more important than reality. and visually it was beautiful. even the attemps at humor felt organic to the thing. the happening is one bad choice after the other. i understand the concepts are cool and intriguing, but the execution sucks big time. i wasn't expecting the usual disaster movie, of course, but just because he tried to do something different doesn't mean it worked. yes, it's nice that the pace is slower, it's interesting that the characters have spiritual concerns in a film like this, but what about the writing and acting?
*blows off the dust*
I know this is an oldie but baddie, but I just saw it.
For whatever reason I actually enjoyed it.
The comments on the acting and dialog I felt applied to Lady in the Water (which I really hated when I saw it in the theater and have not revisited) but it didn't really call out to me like that film.
So now I am conflicted as to why I liked it.
I can only guess that maybe watching a lot of MST3K and b-movies lately has messed with my mind somehow?
Maybe because it is a flat out B-movie the absudity didn't bother me as much.
Honestly, the only thing that really stood out as cringe worthy off the top of my head was the slow-mo look back of Legizamo(sp?) out of the Jeep.
the hot dog scene didn't bother the hell out of you?
Quote from: picolas on June 10, 2009, 01:25:56 PM
the hot dog scene didn't bother the hell out of you?
you'll have to remind me already.
something about "everyone likes hot dogs" but i've already forgotten the context/scene.
there were moments the dialog fell flat, but nothing on the scale i remember with Lady.
btw - I also liked Cloverfield which i just saw a month or so ago. :doh: