10 Movie Dreams That Died In 2019

7. M. Night Shyamalan's Dream Of Repeating His Early-Career Hot Streak

Glass Movie
Blumhouse

After kicking off his Hollywood career with a chain of hit original films (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs), M. Night Shyamalan got drunk on his own hype and destroyed his reputation by churning out some of the most nonsensical, pretentious guff to ever grace 21st century cinema screens (The Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender).

The filmmaker clearly thought that he was untouchable, but came crashing back down to Earth with the poor critical and commercial results of his movies released between 2006 and 2013. From here, the Shyamalan camp went quiet for well over a year, but the director came out swinging with the release of The Visit in 2015, a surprisingly effective found-footage horror flick with shades of Shyamalan's earlier brilliance.

He followed that up with Split, a wildly entertaining horror-thriller with a powerhouse James McAvoy performance. Shyamalan was back! Everyone was excited about this guy again, and he himself probably thought that he was about to pull off one of the greatest comeback stories in Hollywood history, if only he could stick the landing with his next film, Glass, a movie that linked back to his glory days.

Unfortunately, the movie was met with a mixed-to-negative response, not quite the result that many had hoped for, and for Shyamalan himself, another reminder that he couldn't just coast by on the appreciation for his early work.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!