Director M. Night Shyamalan was a cinematic darling in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the release of well-received and successful movies like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs. In the ensuing years, however, Shyamalan has becomes something of a pop culture pariah, having been ostracized by young genre fans for films like The Happening, the utterly misguided Lady in the Water, and After Earth. The true tipping point for most people was in 2010, with the release of The Last Airbender, a lackluster fantasy film for kids based on a beloved cult Nickelodeon animated series.
Shyamalan has not only defended The Last Airbender in an article on IGN, but is so keen on returning to the version of the show he created, that he intends to make a sequel, according to the Movie News Guide.
Check Out: The Last Airbender RULES!
Shyamalan has said that his version of The Last Airbender, which, according to most fans, differs far too much from the source material, was intended to be an exploration of Eastern mysticism, but using a language that was immediately accessible to the show’s core 9-year-old audience. He didn’t want to make it ‘like Transformers,’ in trying to appeal to adolescents.
His original plan was to make a trilogy of Last Airbender films, but those plans were derailed when the first film flopped so badly, and was panned so widely. Never one to accept the word of critics, Shyamalan will charge ahead regardless. This, dear readers, is gumption.
M. Night Shyamalan’s next movie is The Visit, and will be released in theaters on September 11th.
Witney Seibold is a contributor to the CraveOnline Film Channel, and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. You can follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind.
