Coming later this year is The Visit, formerly Sundowning. It will be the first M. Night Shyamalan film since After Earth, and his first "smaller" picture since The Lady In The Water, or arguably The Village. We don't know much about it, but it has Kathryn Hahn in it so that's good enough for me. And after this, it seems, Shyamalan is going to make another movie in the same vein. Or at least that's what he's working on right now, tweeting that he's deep into the script: "So odd writing a film before the previous one hasn't come out. #TheVisit comes out in Sept, and I'm 75pgs into a new small scary thriller." https://twitter.com/MNightShyamalan/status/564425444837957632 I guess there's little surprise that Shyamalan isn't lining up a string of blockbusters right now. At the same time, I do think it will be good for him to get back to basics. We can't really say "back to his roots" - The Sixth Sense was his first film in the character-driven thriller style, but his third film after all - but it definitely seems to be what he's best at. Shyamalan's long-planned romantic walking marathon movie, Labour of Love, came back down off the shelf last year and it looked like Bruce Willis was going to star, but as far as I can see, it didn't happen, and now... well, I wouldn't be so sure that it ever will. Hopefully The Visit will be a return to form and, should it also be a return to box office glory, Shyamalan doesn't get distracted and go off down a dead-end towards foggy, clogged-up tentpoles again. It's just not what he's good at.
Brendon Connelly has been a film writer since the early 90s, with time on the staff of Orbit Magazine, Slashfilm, Bleeding Cool, Den of Geek and many more. He's a long time teacher of film studies and practical filmmaking classes, and has directed music videos, commercials, short films and more. His favourite film is Terry Gilliam's Brazil, his favourite food is pancakes or crepes, and he tries to live his life by the teachings of Kermit the Frog.
