It’s this cocky nature in the media that managing editor of IFC.com Alison Willmore agrees is turning everyone off the director/screenwriter. “I would say it certainly is because of his arrogance in the press, more than actually to do with his filmmaking,” she said.
“The whole book written about his process around the time of The Lady in the Water, all these things don’t help raise your reputation in the eyes of film fans especially if they don’t enjoy your work,” she pointed out.
With all the bad films and directors out there, it seems that the negative response to Shyamalan is overly harsh. While fanboys, who arguably are the harshest critics, may hate Michael Bay for destroying previously published material like Transformers, Shyamalan gets more flack for his own original creations that have no basis of comparison at a time when viewers complain there’s no original material at the movies. Willmore points out that people like Uwe Boll and Tommy Wiseau have held their bad filmmaker badge with pride, Shyamalan is defensive about it and keeps insisting he’s making groundbreaking work. Bolls and Wiseau’s films are so bad you can laugh out loud at them, and the directors laugh along with their audience. Some of Shyamalan’s films are just boring – and he can’t see that. (More on Techland: M. Night Shyamalan Is Sad That You Think His Career Has Stalled)
“When he’s made films the last few that have been bad, they’re not like fun bad,” she explained. “The Happening is genuinely very boring at parts. Not only does he kind of stand by these films because they are great successes (which can get annoying), but they’re not fun disasters.”
But, Castro believes that it’s not a case of brilliance overlooked because of a bad attitude. There are genuine flaws in Shyamalan’s movies, he argued. Even though he is far from the worst filmmaker in the world, the fact that studios are giving him a big budget and allowing him to get away with these flaws is what makes the majority of public feel that his shoddy work is constantly being pushed down their throats. It might not be the worst thing out in the cinemas, but the constant bombardment of press proclaiming his works to be a masterpiece can get on people’s nerves. “In any other profession if one spent millions of dollars producing products lacking in substance, quality, beauty or value, that person would be given their walking papers. That may be the reason the public has turned on M. Night and are baffled by certain Hollywood executives perpetually showering him with ten million dollar paydays and bloated budgets to over execute unsatisfying films,” Castro explained.
“If a car company year after year produces substandard cars then the public has a right to turn on that car company,” he added. “They’re not producing high quality products. People expect something original and above the ordinary from him, and he’s delivered neither. When there’s wonderful filmmakers out there, it’s unconscionable to give him the budget of ten films when any number of those ten films could have been more satisfying than M. Night’s been making recently.”