Shyamalan Steals His Own 'Unbreakable' Sequel Plot

It looks like we won't get Unbreakable 2, after all. Of course, at this stage of his career, I can't imagine there are too many people left who want to see M. Night Shyamalan do much of anything, but it isn't that the writer-director has killed the idea. He's just lifted it for something else. "I cannibalized the idea for the sequel to Unbreakable for one of the Night Chronicles," Shyamalan told MTV about his new upstart movie series...that Universal has since renamed to avoid having his name splashed across everything. The first movie, The Night Chronicles: Devil, is just Devil these days. Night Chronicles is also the name of the production company Shyamalan created for the low-budget thrillers, and Devil leads the way for two other proposed movies. "It was such a cool idea for a villain, and it was actually originally in the script for Unbreakable, and it was too much," Night explained. "There were too many villains, so I pulled this villain out and was like, 'I'll make this the second flick.'" But it didn't work that way, and now, he confesses, "The third Night Chronicles movie is what would have been the sequel [to Unbreakable]. So now I need to come up with a new idea." Oh, let's not. Really. Devil opens September 17th, which is pretty damn close, and since Universal's not risking a whole lot of money on it ($10 million, pre-advertising and prints), so it's almost an ironclad lock that the second film (and maybe the third) will already be paid for by the success of Devil, meaning we'll almost certainly get that Unbreakable follow-up, kind of.

Comments

[Adam]

Every time that I've been to the movies and the trailer for "Devil" has come on... there have been literal groans from the audience when Shyamalan's name flashes on the screen. It's good to know he's not directing these, but the fact that he's being marketing as the one behind it sure doesn't help them at all.

[Colin]

Groans? I usually just hear laughter. And I wish I weren't just saying that.

[Vince]

I get a mix of both- groans from the people who have been burned far too many times, and laughter from myself and my friends because of said groans.

With that said, Devil does look pretty interesting. No, I'm not a Shyamalan apologist, but I'm assuming that he had less to do with the movie than Universal would want you to think. Methinks that Shyamalan once said "Wouldn't it be a great movie idea if you trapped 5 people in an elevator and made one of them the Devil?" then cashed his check and went on his way.