The gamble turned out to be successful, as the film became the second-highest-grossing film of 1999; only Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace earned more. Taking advantage of the momentum, Shyamalan and the studio followed up with a series of profitable films including Unbreakable ($250 million worldwide gross), Signs ($408 million worldwide gross) and The Village ($250 million worldwide gross).
Shyamalan was such a sure bet that Disney would not even let his screenplays make it to the marketplace. As quickly as he finished a script, Disney bought it, paid him one of Hollywood’s highest directing salaries, set a release date and left Shyamalan alone in his Philadelphia backyard to tell his story.
But that arrangement ended abruptly when he turned in the script for 2006’s Lady in the Water, a fable inspired by a bedtime story Shyamalan conceived for his children. At a meeting to discuss the project, then-executive production president Nina Jacobson said she didn’t understand the script and disagreed with Shyamalan’s desire to play one of the major roles. The resulting tension ultimately led him to sever his relationship with Disney. Shyamalan had the misfortune of having the backstage drama chronicled in a book, Michael Bamberger’s The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale, written with full access to the director during the making of Lady in the Water. To some readers, the book’s account of the meeting with Jacobson made Shyamalan appear needy and self-indulgent, creating a stigma that did not bode well for the film, which was eventually made at Warner Bros. All directors have their flops – even Shyamalan’s idol, Steven Spielberg, made 1941 and Always – and Lady in the Water, which earned a fraction of its immediate predecessors, and received some of the most blistering reviews of his career, was Shyamalan’s.
In hindsight, through all of the drama and disappointment, the parting with Disney may just end up becoming a blessing in disguise. The Happening, starring Mark Wahlberg, has allowed Shyamalan the opportunity to parlay his bets along with the role of entrepreneur. 20th Century Fox, which co-financed the film along with India-based media giant UTV, gave Shyamalan the opportunity to gamble on his branded style of storytelling by letting his usual gross-percentage payday ride for the chance to co-own twenty-five percent of his film’s copyright – a smart and profitable move if the director’s new project becomes a summer hit.
On this particular afternoon in New York City, just days from locking his cut of The Happening, the writer-director says the turbulence surrounding Lady in the Water was regrettable, but far in his wake. Shyamalan likes where he is right now: He has a choice summer slot for The Happening, with Fox’s marketing strength behind him, not to mention a July 4, 2010, release date for his next project, Paramount’s Avatar: The Last Airbender, based on the Nickelodeon TV series.

interview Michael Fleming

The last time we read about you in the press was right after the book you agreed to participate in, The Man Who Heard Voices, came out. What were you hoping to accomplish with the book? The idea was to show you all the warts, tell you I have no control over this. I didn’t know [the book’s author, Michael Bamberger]. I just said to him, “Just be fair. Don’t slay me to slay me, but go ahead if you see something to slay me about, if you feel I’m being too egotistical.” I wanted to hear somebody’s take on me. And I really wanted it to be humanizing. But the book was just supposed to detail my next movie for Disney; that’s all it was supposed to be. That’s what it started out as for three, four months, just telling how I make a movie. His pitch to me was [to write about] how one of my movies goes from my head to the page, you know?
Well, now that it’s been said and done, what did you realize about yourself when you read the book that you weren’t perhaps aware of going in? That I was at a place where I really did not want to play by the rules anymore, and I was OK with the repercussions of whatever that may be. [I was] tired of worrying about getting hit. Always worrying about getting hit is a tiring state to be in.

The book became defined by a fateful meeting between you, Dick Cook, Nina Jacobson and Oren Aviv, where they rejected Lady in the Water. You felt betrayed, particularly by Nina’s comments. In retrospect, what do you think now? Did she have points that could have helped? There wasn’t one note I didn’t listen to from anybody – you can ask Warner Bros. Why are there no stories written about how bad my Warner Bros. experience is, and how I didn’t listen to all their stuff? I’ve never worked with anybody like that. It isn’t like that, and I could list everything they said wrong about all my movies – everybody. If you put on the front page of the newspaper, before my movie opens, everything that someone said would be wrong with the movie, it predisposes everyone to think that way. Screenings for Lady in the Water were the highest scores I’ve ever had. They beat Sixth Sense by a point in every category. So I had a very different experience. There wasn’t one note from Warner Bros. that I didn’t think was valuable, and didn’t do and I love the movie. Inherently, it’s a very difficult movie to sell, and with the acidic environment that it came into…it was intended to be different, but it’s hard for those movies that are just totally different. Its sisters were Princess Bride and Edward Scissorhands; it’s in that world. Those were all very tricky sells; they didn’t make as much money as they should have. So you’re already starting like that. Then, if you add Tim Burton’s fucking crazy on top of it, it’s not going to work, you know what I mean? So it’s sad that way. You’re assuming they didn’t say anything was wrong with my other movies, that they didn’t say anything about Sixth Sense. You’re assuming they didn’t say anything about Unbreakable, Signs, any of them.
Well, even on those, did they make comments or ask for cuts that you resisted? Yes, but I listened to them, and prior to that sit-down, I guarantee you they would have said I was their best partner. So there was no pattern here, nothing. It was just a moment in time. This whole thing was so overkill, it’s beyond belief. The whole thing was ridiculous, that [New York Times critic] Janet Maslin and all these people would write all these stories over and over. It was their moment to go for me, and they went for me.
Do you think that the book and those comments created an atmosphere that was unfair to you and the movie? Of course. Nobody even reviewed the movie. It’s all right; I’m not upset about any of it. It’s like I had an opportunity to make one of my favorite movies, and I got to work with all these wonderful people at Warner Bros. that I never had a chance to work with before. It was just a [huge] overreaction, the whole thing, the vitriol and the intention to hurt me, and the movie.
What did you learn from that experience? It’s a tricky road; I wish somebody had a map for me. I don’t have a set of people to look for this. Let’s say Will Smith is looking at Tom Cruise and goes, “This is what Tom did and didn’t do, and now I’m going to do this and not do this.” I’m a filmmaker, and if I wanted to just be that, there’re plenty of people that do that. I sell tickets, people come to the movies for me, so I can look to people for that. But those guys are actors. For example, you put my name on a movie poster to sell it, and you put Will Ferrell’s name on a movie poster – that’s normal, OK? First of all, it took a long time for the industry to accept that as not hubris. It’s fine in books, to put Stephen King out there. It’s fine to do with a play, even on TV, to some extent. But in movies, oh, my God, it’s hubris! We’re more comfortable putting Vin Diesel out there. It took awhile for that to be OK. And I’m not willing to change this very, very unusual relationship that I have with the audience. I’m so lucky to have it. I honor it with the choices and in the integrity that I try to bring to the material to try to make it truthful. I’m constantly getting penalized for not being able to fit in the box. So it’s tough, and it’s gotten to this point where they say to me, “OK, OK, you can put your name on the poster.” Let’s say Will Ferrell was [asked] to host the MTV awards right before his movie opens; he goes and does it, everyone enjoys it and it looks totally normal, and he’s like, “Come see my movie.” Now, if they asked me to host the MTV awards to promote a movie – guaranteed, it would cause animosity.
Why do you think that is? It’s seen as hubris, again, not as promotion. Not as just a simple fact of moviemaking because that’s what we do. I sell the tickets. You’re saying, “No, you can’t do that.” Why is that, again? Why are you uncomfortable with that? I spent two years on my movie, and the actors spent two months. Shouldn’t it be flipped?

So that happened to you with the American Express commercial you directed? Yeah. Don’t think that that all wasn’t one bank. I’m on TV every five seconds. We knew it. It’s such an honor, a nonwhite to be asked to be the spokesman for one of the biggest companies in the world; you can count on your hand how many people have been asked by an international company. And I’m supposed to say no? Again, why? Because it’ll be perceived as self-promotion? Why? De Niro did it. Kate Winslet did it. It has nothing to do with elegance. Make fun of yourself, but don’t take it so seriously, which is the way I tried to do it. So it’s been tricky.
You didn’t act in The Happening? Maybe. You’ve got to go see it.
After getting hammered when you appeared in Lady in the Water, did you pull back a bit? No, that’s not me. In fact, I have to control the reverse: rebellion. I’m really in a good place right now. I’m not really feeling like proving myself in any way. If it’s natural, then I’ll do it. I’m a pop-culture thing, so I’ve got to be really careful about where I go in the movie. It has to feel natural.
When you first shopped the script for The Happening, under the title The Green Effect, you didn’t send the script to Disney. Why not? I didn’t. But just out of respect to – because it was so close. I’d love to sell them another screenplay for a movie.
Would you work with them again? Yes, absolutely. Actually, I’ve already thought about it multiple times. Inadvertently, I didn’t want them to feel awkward in any way and I want it to be organic and happy. I’d love to do it.
The other studios you did send the script to didn’t take it off the table right away. How did that make you feel? Again, I love how it is presented like that. I’m going to tell you the facts of this situation, and then you’ve got to honestly tell me what the fuck’s going on, OK? I hand everyone a screenplay and say, “This is not a development deal; do not buy this unless you 100 percent want to make it and are ready to go.” Those are the terms. This isn’t about selling a screenplay; it’s about making a movie. I can sell screenplays in three seconds. That’s not what this is. You’ve got to be ready to make this movie I’m going to describe to you. You’ve got to tell me how you see it and if we find the right fit, we’ll go make it together. I want it to be in sync right away. And when I went out, there were three or four really good reactions. I felt like it needed one more pass before I was ready to get the commitment of the budget, the [marketing]. The ideas I heard were really good ones. Five or six weeks later, I came back, [and] I got three green lights. Tom [Rothman, chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment] was the one I thought could sell it and do it the best, and I sold it to him. So it came off my printer and five-and-a-half weeks later I had a go movie. OK, so my question to you is: What standard am I being held to if that’s problematic? Who is it that gets movies made faster than that in the world?
That’s a pretty good point when you put it in that perspective. It feels similar to the way Roland Emmerich has sold his movies with start dates. Which is fine, because Emmerich creates almost like an equality thing. Don’t give me your money until you’re ready to go. Don’t pay me to write. That’s not what we’re doing here. Just tell me your thoughts: “Oh, I wish the girl could do this. I would love one more moment like this. I found this interesting.” And then I’ll say, “Well, you know, here’s why the girl is doing this.” And they go, “Oh, OK, I buy that.” And I say, “I really like what we’ve come up with here. I’ll be back.”
So it wasn’t that you presented an unchangeable film, saying, “Here it is if you want to make it.” When you go out [with] a spec, if I was asking studios to develop it, we would’ve gotten six offers, six for six. That wasn’t what I was saying. When a writer goes out and sells a spec, they’re selling a development deal, the potential to make a movie one day. Other than the “Labor of Love” screenplay that I’ll do at Fox – which I’ll make one day – other than that particular screenplay, every single word I’ve written since I was nineteen has been made into a movie. Every single word. I don’t know what standard everybody’s holding me to. “Oh, you stumbled.” What? What am I being held up to? The problem is that there’s so much stuff that gets misinterpreted in the public eye. A deal for a “go” picture like this is made every other year. I thought the process to The Happening was literally picture perfect. If I could do it again exactly that same way, I would do it again, which is meet all these wonderful studios, talk to them, get a sense of their vibe, where they are, tell them about me, tell them about where I came from. I never got to do that.
Nobody knew you. Yeah. They just read the books, or read the articles. They didn’t know me. So I got such a wonderful opportunity to meet and talk to everybody. And from that, almost every single studio has offered a movie since. That’s the negative of living in Philly – that misperception factor.
What would you say is the biggest misperception about you? I guess it is the idea that I’m someone who acts egotistical or is difficult or prima donna-esque. You just need to go to the sets and ask the people I’ve made a movie for if that’s the truth. [Warner Bros. president] Alan [Horn] tried to tell everybody, “You’re not writing about the guy that I know,” and no one wrote that because they said, “Well, you have his project, so you’re biased.” It’s only truthful if it’s bad? How could that be?
You toyed with putting up part of the financing on Lady in the Water. You’ll own twenty-five percent of the copyright on The Happening. Why was this important to you, and how well does the movie have to do, monetarily, for you to be made whole? I don’t want to get into details. There’ve always been two forms of the deal. This is one of the forms that a deal could take. I almost did another movie under the same exact form earlier in my career, but it was a different time. We made this deal about a year ago, and boy, did I make the right decision.
Was the inspiration mostly the opportunity to bet on yourself, or creating an asset for your heirs? The model of Hollywood has changed, and you just have to move with it.
How do you mean it’s changed? A movie like Terms of Endearment would be really tricky to put together right now, [but] that was a big studio picture back in the day. We don’t have that kind of latitude because the cost of making movies is so much [higher], and the lucky thing is, I don’t make them very costly. That’s a big factor. My movies have been so profitable because I make them so low-cost. It is, in a way, betting on yourself and betting on the movie.
Do you think more directors should do this? That’s up to them. I have the advantage of it [being] mine, so I have insider information. There’s a little cheat. And they’re very personal, so I feel very independent-minded about the whole thing.

To read more of this interview, pick up the latest print edition of FADE IN magazine.