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M. Night Shayamalan's Career

JasonFlippy

JasonFlippy

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I've just got a special place in my heart for this whacko haha he makes the craziest movies, some sloppy, some great, some literally the worst of all time (looking at you Airbender and Happening). He made his own superhero universe, which is actually really good (and made for a truly great combination edit from @Wraith).

Mostly I just can't believe how many bombs this dude can make in a row while still netting tons of profit haha he puts out a movie basically every two years, and he always just does his own thing. I kind of admire the guy for it.

ROTTEN TOMATOMETER RATINGS (70% is what I would consider "a good movie")
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BUDGET VS BOX OFFICE (green line represents $100M)
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I've got an even more special place in my heart because Knock at the Cabin was what really inspired me to make my first full movie edit (FEOTM baby!).

The dude just throws himself in movies as cameos no matter how many times people make fun of him, and his next movie stars his own daughter. Idk, the guy is just out there succeeding while failing, doing whatever he wants. LOOK at those movies in the decade from 2003-2013!! It's insane any career can manage that while still turning shitloads of profit.

Anybody else feel this way or is he mostly just kind of a goofy joke still?
 
I mean based on the second chart even though the movies are poorly rated they're still making profit for the studio in most cases, and even if it isn't a huge profit the consistency is valuable. Some of the bombs are due to poor choices on his part though, like making Glass a sequel to Split when their tone is completely different. From an article I read it sounded like it was basically a passion project he had been trying to make for a while - a sequel to Unbreakable, and making Split a part of a trilogy was a way for him to get it done.

But given the different tone in the films it's easy to understand why people didn't rate it that highly - I never watched Glass but the trailer seemed like a Marvel level superhero film, and he whined a bit that other directors were congratulated for making those types of films while he wasn't able to get away with it. Which I guess is a valid complaint but when you have a reputation for more depth than a Michael Bay or James Gunn that's probably a good thing if you want to make deeper films and not just disposable franchised cash grabs.

Although I'd argue that in many cases Shyamalan's films give an appearance of depth just by being less direct, adding suspense, and having ending twists, but you could adequately sum up the movie in a paragraph without really missing anything of substance. At least for the half of his movies on that list that I've seen.
 
Absolutely true on all counts: consistent profit, appearance of depth, and some poor choices. How he managed to mess up Avatar is beyond me. The story was pre-made and beloved, just film it.

And I didn't know that about Glass and the comparisons he was making to Marvel, which is a bit silly because I feel like where he excels is creepy horror, so he's not some big action dude vying for Best Superhero Movie. It's not a fair comparison for anyone to make, especially him.

I know Hollywood is a business and if he wasn't earning big bucks he'd be out of a job. Somehow he keeps pulling it off. The budgets of his last 5 movies was $72M TOTAL, but pulled in $769M. If you look at his 5 best earners, he pulled in $2 BILLION off of a $300M investment.

He's crushing it out there in his own little space.
 
Shyamalan just has a base level of quality. His work is solid. That may not always result in a movie that is enjoyable for everyone, but there s substance and art there. I have appreciated every single movie of his that I've watched. I haven't watched them all, but they are all near the top of my watch list.
 
I agree! I have been a huge fan of his since I saw Unbreakable in theaters, it came out right around my 13th birthday and it really got me good
 
Great director, mediocre writer. I wish he'd put the hubris on pause and team up with someone for a second.
 
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