10 Insane Things Studios DEMANDED In Movies
7. It Can't Be Marketed As A Comic Book Movie - Unbreakable
Hot off the success of M. Night Shyamalan's Oscar-nominated The Sixth Sense, Disney were all too keen to get back in business with the filmmaker for his buzzed-about follow-up project, Unbreakable.
The Mouse House had one condition, however, that the marketing for Shyamalan's superhero thriller couldn't sell it as a comic book movie.
Given the storming critical and commercial success of The Sixth Sense, Disney insisted that they market Unbreakable as another horror-thriller reuniting Shyamalan with star Bruce Willis, rather than letting audiences know that it was a deconstructionist superhero story.
According to Shyamalan himself, Disney was skeptical about the wider commercial prospects of comic book films in 1999 when he was putting Unbreakable together, and so ensured that its trailers entirely ignored the superhero element.
It was a cynical ploy and one that ultimately didn't pay off, as despite being well-regarded among Shyamalan's filmography today, Unbreakable underperformed at the box office.
Who could've possibly foreseen that misleading the audience about the tone and true content of a movie could've backfired?