M. Night Shyamalan Talks 'The Last Airbender'

We saw a couple new posters for The Last Airbender earlier this week, and it could be the movie that rights the ship for Night Shyamalan. Because his studio feature debut, The Sixth Sense, earned a Best Picture nomination and was the second-highest-grossing film of 1999, and his next two films, Unbreakable and Signs both made tons of money and succeeded with critics, too, if not as overwhelmingly as his mainstream introduction. But it's been a sluggish six or seven years, and after The Village, Lady in the Water, and The Happening, Shyamalan became the butt of more han a few jokes, even though only Lady in the Water was his only commercial bomb. But he tells The Los Angeles Times that when he first saw the TV series on which his new film is based, he had an immediate reaction to make his first film from someone else's material. "[My seven-year-old daughter] made us watch as a family and all four of us were hooked," Shyamalan remembers. "I was like, 'This would make a killer movie.' And my wife who really has been kind of in neutral about my career was insane about it. Insane about it: 'You have to do it. This is it. This is the one.'" The film certainly has solid appeal, thanks to its time on Nickelodeon and what will certainly be a major studio push for its Fourth of July weekend opening. But more than that, Night was drawn in by the texture of the story, which showcases a lot more spirituality of Eastern philosophy than you'd find in most Nickelodeon shows. In fact, he compares that combination of action philosophy to key attributes to the success of Star Wars and The Matrix.

"We get to see the process of someone mastering themselves through the three seasons to get to peace. In the first Matrix, you realize that what you're seeing is all false. Those are really ancient ideas. Basic old, old religion. This has that as well. So if you go on the journey and you'll feel that epiphany on top of a great roller-coaster ride. It’s going to be something."

Shyamalan is a pretty good craftsman as a director, but his scripts have needed work recently. And if he gets the message audiences seem to be telling him, that they'll see his movies if the story is compelling enough, he'll realize that they don't have to be his stories all the time. So maybe this can break his slump.

Comments

[Josh]

Hopefully this will prove to have enough story that even MNS can't mess with it too much, and only his directing will need to shine.

[SEAN]

Way to go Shyamalan, as they say in European soccer "looks like he may be in top form"

Translation : Shyamalan hopefully will strike gold & his once heralded creativeness & freshness will once again be recognized......