Watch out folks,
M.Night Shyamalan has finally convinced a studio to pick up one of his scripts. The studio in question is 20th Century Fox, who are taking a HUGE RISK on financing a budget of $57 million for
The Happening.
Lady in the Water had a budget of around $75 million and barely made it's money back from the worldwide box office. The film showed not only the rapid decline of Shyamalan's body of work but also showed his name as a draw is diminishing as
The Village made $256 million worldwide. So what's The Happening about then? Well it was previously called
The Green Effect, and we
posted a script review from Latino Review last month who gave it a positive B+, but at that time all the studio's who had been sent the script passed on it. Likely because of the guy's current reputation. More info from
Variety...
"Pic, which will mark Shyamalan's first R-rated effort, is a paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity". R-Rated Shyamalan film? Does anyone else think Shyamalan is pissed with how people view him, so he's going to have tons of blood and gore in this movie?? The trade claim that he will be casting a big name to lead the film and the script has gone through some re-writes since he branded it about the studio's, and apparently he had a lot more interest in it this time round. M.Night spoke more on the project to Variety....
"We talked about trying to get the kind of intensity that is present in 'Silence of the Lambs,' and the kind that Guillermo del Toro got in `Pan's Labyrinth.' The impact of the beautiful things in that movie wouldn't have landed as strongly if the film had not been R rated." It's a big risk from Fox, but remember the guy made a shit load of money for Disney with
The Sixth Sense,
Unbreakable,
Signs and
The Village all making huge returns. If I was the head of the studio, I would try hard to keep the guy on a leash and monitor him closely, a vain directorial effort will do neither the director or the studio any favours. Planned release date is June next year. source -
coming soon,
variety