The Lady in the Water was Shyamalan’s first real financial disaster after his breakthrough with The Sixth Sense. It began on opening weekend when the film opened to $18.2 million (the lowest opening of all his studio releases) and it continued as the film reached the end of its run. With a gross of $42.2 million, it came in well below its $70 million budget and it wasn’t bailed out overseas since it only made $72.7 million worldwide. Critics were even more unkind this time around with a rotten score of 24% on Rotten Tomatoes.
At this point, we have two clunkers in a row but a good director can bounce back from that. I imagine Shyamalan to have a little bit of an ego so when any of his films fail, I think he takes it a bit personally and it makes him want to come back bigger and more creative (at least that appears to be the intention). In 2008, it appeared that he was going back to his pure thriller roots with The Happening and that it could be a return to form for the director.
If the trailers were any indication, it appeared that he got his mojo back. I still recall the first trailer for this film and it got me incredibly hyped to go see it. I could forgive the prior two missteps if this film were to bring it on all fronts and it looks like it was destined to. This could very well be the film that gets him back on track.
As we all know, trailers can be deceiving and in the case of this film, they REALLY were. The film starts off well enough as the event begins. Something out there is making people commit mass suicide and Shyamalan, making his first R-rated film, actually generates some visually disturbing imagery as the event escalates. The problems begin as the mystery behind the event is revealed and we are left with a preachy and heavy handed endeavor about human nature turning against us.
By the time we get to Mark Wahlberg pleading with a house plant in a declaration of “We come in peace” you truly see how silly the whole thing is and what begins with such promise, quickly becomes a giant dud. Other moviegoers were fooled like myself since this film opened to an impressive $30.5 million but the bottom fell out of this one quickly. Budgeted at $48 million, the film grossed just north of $60 million but was bailed out a by overseas grosses which pushed it to $163.4 million worldwide. It was clear, at least domestically, our patience was growing thin with Shyamalan’s gimmicks and he was beginning to feel like a one-trick pony.
You would think with diminishing box office returns that a major studio would be worried about handing over a big budget to Shyamalan but that very thing happened with 2010’s The Last Airbender. At $150 million, this was the biggest budget Shyamalan had to work with and this time he was adapting material that wasn’t his own. The film based on the first season of Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender has a very huge following so perhaps that’s all the studio thought they needed to make it a hit.
I’ll be honest, this wasn’t a film for me. I couldn’t get into the story and I mostly blamed that on the source material, rather than Shyamalan. This is one I can’t really come down on him for but because he had a string of misfires before this, it ended up being seen as another one his failures. The film made $131.7 million domestically but it was below its massive $150 million budget. Because of the international appeal of the source material, the film made $319.7 million worldwide but it was still perceived as a failure. It’s also his most panned film to date with a very rotten score of 6% on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave the film half a star and said,
“The Last Airbender” is an agonizing experience in every category I can think of and others still waiting to be invented. The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here. It puts a nail in the coffin of low-rent 3D, but it will need a lot more coffins than that.”
By the time his next film After Earth was released in 2013, it was clear before it even opened that the film wouldn’t be good. The movie was a subject of bad pre-release buzz that seemed near impossible to overcome. On paper, this should work since one of the biggest stars in the world, Will Smith, was headlining the film with his son, Jaden. But science fiction has to be done right in order to work, otherwise, it can come off cheesy and convoluted. After Earth was the latter and then some. It’s a very dull affair and it doesn’t offer up anything new for the genre. It mutes the charm that is Will Smith’s biggest asset and saddles his son with most of the heavy lifting which is a shame because he’s simply not strong enough to carry a film of this scope.
Again, Shyamalan is given a hefty budget ($130 million) but the return on investment doesn’t seem worth it. The film made $243.8 million worldwide despite Will Smith resonating overseas. It failed to come close to matching its budget domestically and bombed with critics as well as with a rotten rating of 11% on Rotten Tomatoes. After the film’s release, Shyamalan was once again a punching bag in the industry with many people feeling his best days were behind him.
As I said earlier, we all love a comeback but any good comeback needs to be earned. When rumblings of Shyamalan’s next film began, I had zero interest in it. At this point, I had given up on him and that’s a harsh thing to say about someone who began with so much promise. I had believed that with each subpar film he would get better but I was completely letdown every time.
My first exposure to The Visit was through early reviews from preview screenings. They were overwhelmingly positive and it had me thinking maybe Shyamalan had finally gotten his groove back. Granted, sometimes early reviews from fanboys can be very misleading at times but as the film drew closer to its release date, the reviews were still on the positive side. This is when I decided to give the film a shot.
Sometimes that extra chance is beneficial because The Visit did remind me why I embraced Shyamalan as a filmmaker when he exploded with The Sixth Sense. He took a sub-genre of horror, such as the found footage film, and actually made it a bit fresh again. The film was a clever mix of suspense and a dark sense of humor that resulted in something completely original. Most importantly, he went back to basics. With a budget of $5 million, he could bring down the scope and focus on what mattered. Atmosphere won over spectacle and it showed us that he’s at his best when he’s not held up against a budget that overshadows his vision.
Reviews were solid as well was the box office. The film grossed $65 million domestically and $98 million worldwide which was very impressive based on how small the budget was. One critical review by Scott Mendelson of Forbes Magazine summed it up best for me,
“The Visit is the one we’ve been waiting for, folks. It’s good. Oh my word, is it good. But more importantly, it is excellent in that specific way that reminds us why M. Night Shyamalan was once such a marvel. It is richly humanistic, filled with individually sketched characters that often sparkle with wit and surprising decency.”
It looks like Split is another win for Shyamalan. Reviews are even more solid for this outing than they were for The Visit. Sometimes you have to go back to basics to remember why you love doing all of this in the first place. Clearly, Shyamalan has found that love again and as long as he maintains that love, his creativity will continue to shine as he reaches this second pinnacle of his career that is already impressive, despite the roadblocks he’s encountered along the way.
