Behold an audience’s reaction to the mention of M. Night Shyamalan’s name in a trailer for the horror movie “Devil.” The director apparently gets a “story” credit in the film and is, of course, the film’s producer. UPDATE: NBC Universal blocked the video, so we’ll describe it for you. Someone is taping a trailer for a horror movie with a camcorder. The usual audience noises are audible. When the credits switch to “From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan” the audience spontaneously groans, as if in pain.
His recent movie, “The Last Airbender” has not been what you’d call a huge commercial and critical success.
In two weeks of release, the $150 million movie has dropped from second place to seventh. It lost more than half its audience in the first week. By comparison, Toy Story 3, which has been in theaters two weeks longer than Airbender, continues to beat it in total revenue and per-screen revenue.
And then there was “The Happening” (in which nothing happened), and before that, “Lady in the Water,” which was described by a film critic as “someone pouring petrol over their heads and setting fire to themselves.”
So the question is: Why, if this is the reaction audiences have to M. Night, do they continue to advertise him prominently?
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Good thing the commercial for this movie wasn’t shot in the theater that black girl got arrested in. The manager would have called the cops and demanded M. Night and his entire crew be taken to jail. Then he would ask, “where is my $500?”
The groaning by the audience thing also happened when I saw that trailer on Sunday.
At least it doesn’t say “from the creative writer of ‘The Last Airbender’”.
How do people react to his name?
“M. Night” isn’t what he was named – that would have been Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan, to be prcecise.
How do I react to his name? Meh. How I react to the movies is just skip them. Sixth Sense was fine, but that was the only one I’d deem watchable (drunk).
I saw this trailer the other day when I went to see Inception. While the trailer was fine, the audience had that exact same reaction when his name came up.
I have personally pretty much hated everything this guy has done. Can’t stand these movies.
I am grasping onto hope he’ll make another great movie. The Happening wasn’t bad and now that he’s hit rock bottom with the last airbender there is only one way to go, up, right? I can’t believe he did something like the Last Airbender though, typically he has been one of those directors who rely on plot more than special effects. Look at Signs. Suspense and a great plot. He could have totally gone all CGI with the aliens, but he didn’t. Yet, the movie was still effective. Did he just get greedy with this one?