M. Night Shyamalan - Career

Career

Shyamalan made his first film, the semi-autobiographical drama Praying with Anger, while still a student at NYU, using money borrowed from family and friends. It was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 1992, and played commercially at one theater for a week in rural Woodstock, Illinois. When the film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, Shyamalan was introduced by David Overbey who predicted that the world would see more of Shyamalan in the years to come. Praying with Anger has also been shown on Canadian television. Filmed in Chennai, it is his only film to be shot outside of Pennsylvania.

Shyamalan wrote and directed his second movie, Wide Awake, in 1995, though it was not released until 1998. His parents were the film's associate producers. The drama dealt with a ten-year-old Catholic schoolboy (Joseph Cross) who, after the death of his grandfather (Robert Loggia), searches for God. The film's supporting cast included Dana Delany and Denis Leary as the boy's parents, as well as Julia Stiles, and Camryn Manheim. Wide Awake was filmed in a school Shyamalan attended as a child and earned 1999 Young Artist Award nominations for Best Drama, and, for Cross, Best Performance. Only in limited release, the film grossed $305,704 in theaters, against a $6 million budget.

That same year Shyamalan co-wrote the screenplay for Stuart Little with Greg Brooker.

Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense, which was a commercial success and later nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. He followed The Sixth Sense by writing and directing Unbreakable, released in 2000, which received positive reviews. His 2002 film Signs, where he also played Ray Reddy, gained both critical and financial success. His next movie The Village (2004) received mixed reviews from the critics, but turned out to be a financial success. His later fantasy film Lady in the Water (2006) performed worse critically and financially. The film The Happening (2008) was a financial success but also received negative reviews. In 2010, he directed The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender. It received extremely negative reviews in the United States and won five Razzie Awards, but has gone on to make nearly $320 million internationally at the box office.

In July 2008, it was announced that Shyamalan had partnered with Media Rights Capital to form a production company called Night Chronicles. Shyamalan would produce, but not direct, one film a year for three years. The first of the three films was Devil, a supernatural thriller directed by siblings John and Drew Dowdle. The script was written by Brian Nelson, based on an original idea from Shyamalan. The movie was about a group of people stuck in an elevator with the devil, and starred Chris Messina. The film was not previewed by critics before its release, eventually receiving mixed reviews. Devil was not a blockbuster hit, but has become a commercial success relative to its budget. The next film in the Night Chronicles series will be called Reincarnate. It will be scripted by Chris Sparling and directed by Daniel Stamm.

Although Shyamalan has stated he is in the middle of directing his next thriller, it has been confirmed that his next film will be a science fiction epic titled After Earth, to star Jaden Smith. When asked about it in an interview, Shyamalan denied the idea of shooting it in 3D but stated he was planning something technically special. In August it was reported that Shyamalan, for the first time in his career, will turn his hand at television. Shyamalan has developed a television show titled Proof for the SYFY channel along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer writer and producer Marti Noxon. The series revolves around the son of a billionaire technical genius, whose parents die in a tragic accident and who then offers a substantial reward for scientific proof of life after death. It is planned to premiere in the latter half of 2013.