M Night Shyamalan 46

The Sixth Sense director is done with big-budget movies and hopes to win back fans with his “smaller” ones, like this week’s Split.

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The last time 8 DAYS spoke to M Night Shyamalan, the esteemed director of The Sixth Sense, was in 2013. In Cancun. Really, it’s nothing to be envious about. You see, it was a webchat. The Indian born, Pennsylvanian-raised filmmaker was over there, while we were holed up here in a Shenton Way office. It was evening there and he was (probably) helping himself to a cocktail or two, while it was bright and early here and we were struggling to stay awake with coffee and cinnamon rolls … Anyhoo, we were then chatting about After Earth, the Will and Jaden Smith-starring sci-fi epic that everyone hoped would restore Night’s once illustrious career (remember when he was hailed as “the next Spielberg”?) before it was besmirched by The Lady in the Water, The Happening and The Last Airbender. Alas, After Earth tanked big time. When we broached the subject again recently with Shyamalan, we can detect unease reverberating through the phone line. Did After Earth’s colossal misfire land him in ‘director’s jail’? (It’s a term to describe a filmmaker who’s been ostracised by the industry.) Shyamalan doesn’t give a definite reply. “Well, it was only two years later,” he tells us from New York, “and I wrote as fast as I could.” So even if he was in there, he got out quick — with 2015’s The Visit, a found-footage shocker produced by horror maestro Jason Blum (Insidious). The movie, about two kids dropping in on their strange grandparents, was a critical and commercial success. Was that a fluke or the beginning of a new chapter? The verdict is still out depending on how Shyamalan’s latest, Split, opening this week, is received. In this indie thriller, James McAvoy stars as a young man suff