The rise and fall of Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan

I used his full name because at this point the rose colored glasses are off.

Shyamalan is probably the most unique filmmaker in history because when his career took off (after selling some scripts and directing a stinker), he became a household name not seen since Spielberg, and his films made shitloads of money, yet the cost to profit ratio was so large.  The Sixth Sense cost $40M (excluding marketing), yet grossed $674M (over $1Billion adjusted for inflation), excluding video sales which doubles that number.  An amazing return on investment.

At this point Night was the Michael Jordan of filmmakers.  Even when he went off and did an ultra personal and downbeat film like Unbreakable, it still grossed $250M (probably close to $600M adjusted) off a $75M budget...another phenomenal return on investment.  Night could maintain his independence as an auteur since his films were so profitable.  It is one thing to gross that kind of money with a bigger budget film, but films budgeted under $100M generally do not gross those kinds of figures.

Still, many critics saw Unbreakable as a disappointment box office-wise, so Night turned back to feel good crowd pleasers with Signs.  Again, with a fairly low budget of $70M, the film grossed $400M (probably closer to $700M adjusted) shutting the critics up and putting Night back on top as the reining king of Hollywood.  Spielberg's films made lots of money, but his budgets were higher.  Night was unique in that he crafted fairly low key films that could be made cheaper, but had high concept ideas to draw in huge crowds.  It was the best of both worlds.

At this point though, audiences and critics started to give Night flack for becoming what seemed to be a one trick pony with his twist endings.  It was arguably this technique though that made him who he was, that brought in those huge crowds to his films...without it, would his movies continue their blockbuster streak?  The Village would challenge this idea.  A medium budget of $60M (which is somewhat high considering the subject matter and plot), the film was another twist ending capper, but did Unbreakable business of about $250M.  Still very profitable...problem is, this was no Unbreakable...it wasn't a personal film that had a downbeat vibe...it was a horror/thriller crowd pleaser and it didn't deliver on the level the studios were used to with those types of films from Night.  But honestly, when was the last time a costume flick made that kind of money?  The studio probably didn't care though, they were keeping an eye on Night from now on...and audiences continued to grow tired of his schtick.  Not to mention the films themselves were becoming lazy and hackneyed.  The Village had an incredibly stupid twist that literally made no sense and destroyed the fabric the film was built on.

Now things got interesting.  Night had a pretty disastrous falling out with Disney, the studio that had bankrolled all his hits and allowed him his continued autonomy.  All wonderfully detailed in the great book The Man Who Heard Voices.  It was in this book that one could witness just how horribly skewed Night's point of view was and how insulated and arrogant he'd become, as it chronicled the making of his next film Lady in the Water.  It was no wonder his films were becoming hackneyed...he refused to listen to people who didn't like his ideas (even threatening to fire his assistant when he disagreed with him about a trailer).  Warner Brothers picked up the tab though, and bankrolled Lady In The Water for $70M.  This time, there was blood in the water...the film was savaged by critics and grossed a pathetic $72M worldwide.  And this had been Night's most personal film to date.  The party was over.  It was a weird, personal film like Unbreakable, but couldn't pull in that film's numbers.  Night's reputation was starting to bleed into his films' box office take...he was becoming a bloated, parody of himself and his films were literally becoming parodies themselves.

A personal note...after I'd seen Lady, I pretty much lost touch with a filmmaker I greatly admired up to that point.  A filmmaker who remained removed from Hollywood (he lives and makes his films in Philadelphia, his home town), but dominated their system and made fairly personal films.  He was living the dream.  But Lady was...I couldn't believe how bad it was, and I couldn't believe the man who made Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs was even capable of making such a wretched abomination.  How can someone who can make something as genuinely amazing as Sixth Sense, and to a lesser degree Unbreakable and Signs, make such a stinker?  It amazes me to this day.

At this point the business was getting more and more bloated with expensive blockbusters and the mid budgeted films were vanishing from studios' release schedules.  Night was probably the only filmmaker in town able to make $60M thrillers without huge stars...studios weren't making those much anymore because they didn't want singles or doubles, they wanted home runs, and to get home runs, the model the business used was generic, safe, razzle-dazzle films with lots of action and visual FX in order to bring in huge grosses, and those films cost alot of money.

Now Night was forced to go back to the well and come up with a high concept idea, that could be done relatively low budget.  So The Happening...happened.  With his lowest budget since The Sixth Sense ($48M), Night made an absolutely laughable piece of shit...a movie so tone deaf you wonder if Night sold his soul to the devil to make it in Hollywood and the devil had come to pay up.  This was supposed to be a Night-one-hitter-quitter-thriller...the kind of film he could reliably make and bring home the bacon for the studio (which was Fox...I'm assuming Warner Brothers dropped him like a bad habit after the Lady disaster).  But it couldn't even do Unbreakable or The Village numbers.  A combination of Night's falling star with the public and a garbage movie to his name, it seemed Night's career was on life support.

So I imagine at this point he had no choice.  The medium budget era was all but over at the studios, and since Night couldn't deliver anymore at that level anyway, he was forced to become a filmmaker for hire on a big budget spectacle...this was Night backed into a corner.  The Last Airbender was the first film in his career that did not originate from his brain.  Not to mention he had little to no experience with CGI.  The result was an even bigger travesty than even Lady or The Happening...if you can believe it.  A film so horrible that I kept having to pinch myself while watching it.  I couldn't believe a studio had allowed filming to continue on a film with actors so fucking wretched they made soap actors look like Oscar contenders.  Who was watching the dailies and seeing this shit?  I suppose since the film cost $150M (excluding marketing, and Night's biggest budget BY FAR), the studio was afraid to shut the film down, sit Night in a corner and tell him that they may as well let an NYU film student take over because the results would probably be the same, but the student would be cheaper.  The film made $319M, but it didn't matter...Night was at the adult's table now, and with a $150M negative cost, excluding marketing, that simply wasn't good enough.  If this had been another medium budget thriller from Night, he'd be alright, but it was a big budget spectacle based on a popular IP, and the studio obviously expected better results.

So now we have After Earth.  Another big budget spectacle, not based on an existing popular IP, but the biggest movie star in the world as backup (Will Smith).  Night has no more choices if he wants to stay in the A-level game.  He has to take studio for hire work now, or find some small company willing to bankroll a medium budget film so he can originate his own ideas, since clearly the studios are not taking chances like that anymore.  If After Earf bombs, Night's A-list career might be over...

It's a sad, but interesting story of a man filled with such promise, but the cold, hard reality of money, fame and success turning him into a cautionary tale.  I'm sure if you were to ask Night how his career were going he'd say something about enjoying being challenged to play the Hollywood game and broaden his experience...but underneath I'm sure he's missing the days when his name on a movie screen didn't incite laughter, and he could write his own ticket with his own ideas.