Ordinarily, we don’t derive huge pleasure from kicking a guy when he’s down. But when that guy totally betrays his early promise by committing a series of hideous, grisly crimes against film, then resorts to directing an adaptation of an animated series with a massive, built-in fan base of ten-year-olds and manages to screw even that up beyond belief, yet still is so deluded with visions of his own greatness that he doesn’t even realize he is down? Well, then, fuck our scruples, we’re going to pile on.
And so it is with unconcealed malicious pleasure we report the booing of M Night Shyamalan’s name during a showing of the trailer for “Devil” at Comic-Con. If it’s the same one we’ve already seen, some of the titters undoubtedly came from the ridiculously pompous phrasing “from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan” but we’re willing to bet the lion’s share of the disapprobation was elicited by the mere mention of the man’s name — and this at Comic-Con, where you would imagine the last remaining vestiges of any sort of fan base would be lurking, if it existed.
But clearly Shyamalan’s only fans these days can be found among the execs who greenlight his films and think his name still has marketing cachet. The real casualty, of course, is “Devil” itself, which Shyamalan only has a story credit on (Brian Nelson wrote the screenplay) and is directed by brothers Drew and John Erick Dowdle, who previously split producing and directing roles on “Quarantine.” The shame is that until the misstep of trying to hang the film on Shyamalan’s no-longer-existing-if-it-ever-did reputation for thrills and horror, apparently the audience were kinda digging it – indeed, it looks to us like a pretty serviceable trapped-in-a-lift thriller. Unfortunately it hasn’t any stars or flashy sets or big explosions in it, so there’s really nothing too memorable about the clip other than whose “mind” it’s from.
No doubt the Teflon-coated Shyamalan will find some way of spinning this development to the people who matter (most importantly himself) as he’s managed to do with his entire recent output – what other explanation can there be for his continued employment? And yes, we know “The Last Airbender” is just about making sequel-worthy money as planned, but it really doesn’t justify the continued treatment of Shyamalan as though he’s some sort of fucking auteur.
Perhaps Hollywood execs were convinced by his ‘performance’ at a recent Mexico press conference at which he claimed his integrity is such that he gives up “most of my salary to get the sequel rights to my movies just so they don’t get exploited.” Which clearly means that if we’re ever to get the much-anticipated “The Happening 2: An Even Iller Wind,” it will be with the original genius behind the camera — what a relief.
Other choice quotes culled from that press conference (clip below) include: “’The Village’ is France’s favorite movie;” ‘The Lady in the Water’ is huge in Spain;” and, this writer’s personal favorite, “In England they’re teaching a class on ”The Happening.” This was all in answer to the journalist who had asked him, simply enough, if ”Airbender” was his commercial attempt to rebuild the fan base he had lost with previous efforts. “If I thought like you,” Shyamalan responded, “I’d kill myself… Only time will take the cynicism of your point of view and eradicate it.” Yikes.
But, to be fair, he does say one sensible thing: “Your impression of my career is not my impression of my career” — and that is clearly very, very true. He still thinks he has one. And as long as he keeps those pins stuck in his little wooden effigies of the decision-makers in Hollywood, we’re all going to have to suffer the consequences.