With the release of his new film The Last Airbender approaching, M. Night Shyamalan is back on the tongues of movies goers. The once critically acclaimed director has fallen off of the leader board in the last few years. Films like Lady in the Water and The Happening have yielded Shyamalan poor box office turnouts and even worse reviews. However, beautifully orchestrated films such as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable give fans, myself included, hope that he can turn it all around. Unfortunately, I do not foresee The Last Airbender being the catalyst M. Night will need to reclaim his crown as the king of the contemporary suspense genre.
Reports from Deadline via (The Playlist) confirm that Shyamalan has several other projects in development. The most promising seems the to a project reportedly titled Twelve Strangers. What makes this venture particularly appealing to me is that M. Night is teaming up the Chris Sparling, who wrote the Sundance smash hit Buried. I have yet to see the film, but the screenplay is 80 pages of concise, well constructed storytelling that keeps you engaged from start to finish. By the time you finish and wipe the sweat of your brow, you are baffled at how fast you were able to cruise the piece. This realization is a distant second to the shock you experience when you once again become aware of the fact that the whole story takes place in a box underground, with zero deviation.
The bottom line is that M. Night is a talented director who has lost his way as a story teller. Chris Sparling has proven himself as a truly genius story teller, which may be exactly the Shyamalan needs to put forth an exemplary piece of cinema.
Are M. Nights best days behind him or is he capable of a full fledged come back? I keep mentioning a come back. Was Shyamalan ever there to begin with?