The genius fright auteur M. Night Shyamalan just doesn’t know when to shut up, especially to the New York Times, who really haven’t been all that kind to him in recent years. That last profile they did on him was pretty damning and made him sound and look like whiny, primadonna.
Their latest profile on the director isn’t too flattering either and come accompanied with the pretty sarcastic title, “Shyamalan’s Hollywood Horror Story, With Twist,” and notes how he’s compared himself to Hitchcock and Spielberg in the past (not to mention briefly recaps the aforementioned profile where he battled with Disney for not recognizing his genius; he was so cheesed about it, he wrote a fucking book about it, accusing Disney of not giving his “Lady in the Water” script “a truthful reading” and added that he believed the movie was rejected because the studio “no longer valued individualism.” Oh god, fucking crybaby.).
The article then notes that life hasn’t been that kind to Shyamalan in recent years after his last two films have taken box-office and critical beatdowns and how’s there’s now a shit ton of pressure on his upcoming masterpiece, “The Happening.” But the director is unfazed, he refused to live in Hollywood, he lives outside the system man, he’s a loner, a rebel, the type of guy you don’t want to get mixed up with.
“I have two options: conform to the paths that have been laid out prior to me or deal with it,” he told the Times. “So which one do you suggest I do? I wouldn’t be where I am now if I hadn’t denied those conventions to begin with.”
M. Night recently “introduced” his new film to audiences in the form of a trailer where he pontificated on about it at the beginning of the clip and some execs are doing what pretty much everyone on the Internet (including us) already did, scoffing at the move with contempt.
“It’s pomposity on the part of studios to think that the public is going to respond to an advertising message that says to see the film because it’s from the director of another film. It’s stupid and to some degree, it’s fueled by ego,” said David Weitzner, the former head of worldwide marketing for Universal.
The fauxter argues, hey, if superstar actors can do it, why can’t superstar directors like me!?
“The problem is the assumption that if I am selling the movie — because I’m selling me — that I’m being egotistical. If Will Smith did the same thing, it would be perceived very differently,” he said. “You’re supposed to be hidden if you’re a director. That’s a rule that who said in the movie business?”
He’s got a point. We mean, hey, he’s finally ingratiated himself to us with those modest remarks. We’ll put his mediocre and heavily overrated work in the past and definitely spend money on this new thrilling movies about trees that hate people so they try and kill the world. Uhhhh…. The rest of the article basically goes on to say how Hollywood hates him for having the gall to write that whiny book and rehashes the whole story.
“You’d want me to take the money? You’d want me to whore out. That’s what they wanted me to do,” he said. “You know how hard it is not to do the conservative thing out there?”
Ugh, someone get this guy a bottle.
