Names unfamiliar? How about Brian Nelson? Know him? No? Kind of shrug or have a neutral reaction?
How about M. Night Shaymalan?
Well, sure. NOW you wince or shudder or remember when that name promised a brain-twisting thrill of a suspense film before he wandered off into self-indulgent crap.
So here’s the thing: The Dowdles are the directors of, and Nelson the screenwriter for, a new film called “Devil.” I’ve seen the trailer for it twice in theaters, and in both instances, the audience was fascinated, enraptured. They were clearly into the escalating tension that the trailer generated.
And then Shaymalan’s name popped up as what was presumably the main selling point. A sort of “M. Night Shaymalan Presents” deal, and apparently he wrote the story upon which it was based. Now under normal circumstances, the guy who wrote the story is the least important individual in the creative pecking order. Most movies you can’t even name the screenwriter, much less the story writer; usually only the director’s name sticks with you. But because it’s Shaymalan, people automatically assume he wrote and directed it.
What was the net result? In both cases, moans and derisive laughter. The trailer totally had the audience on its side until Shaymalan’s name was put forward and then they lost the viewers. Apparently they decided the movie simply wasn’t going to be worth their time based upon previous disappointments.
How depressing that must be for the actual creative team whose film is likely going to take a financial hit as a consequence.
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When I saw the trailer for Devil (ahead of Scott Pilgrim, for those of you keeping score), the audience was already against the film before M. Night’s name came up. I did a kind of combination laugh/headshake pretty early on, as soon as the premise revealed itself.
Yes, the movie looks bad even without M. Night’s name. Btw, I know many will disagree but to me M. Night didn’t get bad until The Happening, which is an amazingly awful movie. And then Airbender looks bad too. Devil, though, doesn’t even need M. Night’s name to look bad. Just an awful looking trailer imo. I have no idea why M. Night attached his name to it. I guess because he’s starting to buy into what people have been saying about him since, I think, Signs. I didn’t buy into what people said until I saw Happening. ugh.
If Shyamalan was really a “Hitchcock-ian master of the twist”, he’d have lobbied to keep his name out of all the promotions for the film, revealing his involvement only as the final credits rolled. That’d have shown his detractors. (or not. but the movie probably would have made more money.)
Frankly, I’ve lost interest in modern horror films in general–I was blowing off “Devil” as not worth my time almost immediately. Horror films today are so reliant on shock value and *only* shock value that I really don’t care anymore. Is there even a plot to “Devil”, or is it simply what the trailer makes it out to be: people get stuck in an elevator and then scary stuff happens?
I think the basic premise is interesting. It all depends on what they do with it or rather how lazy the creative team will be. Shaymalan involvement might have only been an index card that said: elevator, small group of diverse people, one’s the devil. Even in his worst movies, for after Unbreakable, maybe Signs…maybe, he seems to be a capable director with good eye for framing a shot, but his writing is lackluster. I thought Signs was an excellent film until you discover that the aliens can get killed by water. WTF, you got to a planet with 70-80% and then play hide-n-seek in a corn field which needs a lot of water. Very sloppy, unless somewhere it was explained as a germ related War of the Worlds phenomena. Anyhow I hope the movie Devil does well and maybe one day Shaymalan will start directing movies that someone else writes or adapts.
It’s funny, for once I didn’t proof what I typed and it is partly about lackluster writing. Just to be a little more clear: I enjoyed the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable and mostly Signs, but after that his movies took a nose dive.
I really enjoyed “Sixth Sense”, liked “Unbreakable” somewhat better, and ther hasn’t been an MNS film since that i had the slightest desire to see once i saw the trailer.
You pretty much described my experience when if first saw the trailer. You’re right, his name has become a turn-off for me, and it’s likely he had as much involvement in the film as Mary Shelley did in any Frankenstein movie.
In a similar vein, it bugged me last year when the CORALINE movie was promoted as “from the director of THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS” and many people assumed it was a Tim Burton film. I wonder if that was intentional on the part of the film’s promoters.
Well, it WAS from the director of Nightmare Before Christmas. If people mistakenly think Burton directed it, surely that’s their problem.
Not entirely. The promotion for “Nightmare” was such that Burton’s name was all over it and Selig was left out in the cold. Audiences are accustomed to the directors name being the one pushed. So when the promos say “From director Tim Burton” repeatedly, people are misled into concluding that Burton directed it. It just happens that this misleading tactic helped for Nightmare.
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I think people can be largely forgiven for believing that, given that on DVD the name of the movie is Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. In such cases the name before the ‘s isn’t always the director, but it further engrains that name in people’s heads.
You might not like it, because fandom CAN be so negative at times, but the fact is in this case fandom was running ahead of popular opinion. M Nights name is toxic.
I thought it was Shyamalan?
Marketing departments will often trick the audience into giving them a buck, because often they feel they can’t depend on the film’s own merits to do so. As someone pointed out, most of Henry Selick’s movies get sold on the tag “from the director of ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas,'” who a lot of people think is Tim Burton. In fact, Henry Selick is a pretty good director on his own merits and has directed some fairly popular stuff. But no one knows him.
And then there’s all this “presents” bûllšhìŧ that they do. Tim Burton presents “9.” Peter Jackson presents “District 9.” And then they go into other popular films, “from the director of “Juno.” I especially hate when Disney does that in their trailers. The name of the studio should be enough of a turn-on, they don’t need to spend half the trailer reminding me that they made “The Lion King” and “Peter Pan.” Finally, when the relationship becomes it’s foggiest, you get the tag “from the mind of.” As if, one day Ron Howard was sitting on the šhìŧŧër, and Leo and Joe Gordon-Levitt went into his head and extracted the plot from the movie. It’s just a bûllšhìŧ way to give the foggiest credit ever to the biggest name who had something to do with the film.
Really, that’s one thing that I love about viral videos. Even the worst viral videos don’t try to hook you by shouting out names that make money.
Anyway, I was planning on missing “Devil” the first time I read the plot synopsis on one of my many visits to IMDb. There are a few things coming out this fall that I’m excited for, but that one doesn’t make the list.
I apologize, I haven’t left a comment in a while so I totally spaced on the periods. I’m sorry it’s such a mess.
Heh.
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And some people even had the impression that Burton must have written Coraline.
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Randy Milholland’s something*positive had something to say about that.
It’s about name recognition. Lots of people may hate M. Night Shaymalan’s films (I think he peaked at THE SIXTH SENSE), but studiop heads know that his movies have made money so they hope his name will make them money. If they pitched this from the Dowdles and Nelson, audiences would shrug and scratch their heads.
The potential problem with DEVIL isn’t the premise but what is done with it — and Shaymalan has dropped the ball in this area quite a lot. The premise is hardly unique (several strangers trapped in one place, where strange things happen and one isn’t what they appear to be) but what happens from there determines its quality.
“The potential problem with DEVIL isn’t the premise but what is done with it — and Shaymalan has dropped the ball in this area quite a lot. The premise is hardly unique (several strangers trapped in one place, where strange things happen and one isn’t what they appear to be) but what happens from there determines its quality”
That was the problem that I had with “The Village” and especially “The Lady In The Water!” The biggest irony was that the actress playing The Title Character was the daughter of the director of “Splash” which was a much better “mermaid” flick IMHO!
I want to see this movie based solely on the one-sentence description on the IMDB. I’m even avoiding the trailer so that nothing is spoiled for me.
Haven’t seen the trailer for “Devil” yet, but what’s been described reminds me of when the trailer for “The Black Hole” began appearing in theaters. (Yeah, I know, it dates me.) The audience was with the trailer up until the time “from Walt Disney Productions” showed up on the screen, and there was the biggest groan you’d ever want to hear.
Tim Burton, now that REALLy is a man who made 2 good films and wandered off into self-indulgent crap.
About M.(ichael) Night Sh…, the only really bad movie he has done is Happening. “Signs”, “Village”, “The lady…” are good and entertaining films, not as good as “6th sense”, but good enough to me.
Tim Burton, now that REALLy is a man who made 2 good films and wandered off into self-indulgent crap.
About M.(ichael) Night Sh…, the only really bad movie he has done is Happening. “Signs”, “Village”, “The lady…” are good and entertaining films, not as good as “6th sense”, but good enough to me.
Saying it twice doesn’t make it any more convincing.
Well, I will say that I liked the characters in The Village. It was a bit unnerving to see a William Hurt film in which he didn’t come across like a man dead inside.
Some movies make me feel like I’m watching a play with minimal set design. The three films I’ve seen by this director fit into that category.
For the record, I always pay attention to the writer of a film. Comes from paying attention to such things on TV or in comics. Not that a trailer often tells you who the writers are, unless you read the title card fast (if there is one). Yes, I know that a lot of the time the writers of a movie have less say than in other media, but seeing that it’s a film by, say, Rossio and Elliot helps.
So in this case, I just wanna know why the people promoting the film thought it was a good idea to attach MNS’ name ot it.
I loved the trailer the first couple of times I saw it, and if buzz and reviews are good, I’m going to see it, despite Shayamalan’s name on it.
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df2506: Btw, I know many will disagree but to me M. Night didn’t get bad until The Happening…
Luigi Novi: To each his own. His writing began to suffer in Signs, and after that insult called The Village, I stopped watching his movies.
My sister described the basic premise of The Village to me. I said “Let me guess” and promptly figured out the rest of the film. Now granted I did figure out Sixth Sense two minutes in, but at least I was in the theater.
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That’s what happened to me with “Shutter Island”.
I guessed at least some of the essential plot points of “Shutter Island” after watching about half the trailer, which was all i could stand.
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Kate and a friend watched it and confirmed my guesses.
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I mean, when all i could think of, watching the trailer, was “Come and Go Mad”…
Funny – I guessed the premise of The Village as
well based on the trailer. My coworker asked
what I thought would be the twist, and told her what I
thought it would be. After she watched it, she
blamed me for spoiling the movie. Go figure.
As for Shymalan’s movies – I thought The Sixth
Sense and Signs were decent. I’m currently
borrowing Unbreakable, which I heard was pretty
good.
How much of people’s being able to guess the twist of THE VILLAGE was because, since it was a MNS movie, they knew a twist was inevitable?
Had I walked seen THE VILLAGE without being informed of MNS’s previous work, it may not have occurred to me that there would be a twist to guess at.
I pegged THE USUAL SUSPECTS right after the credits. (Spoilers follow, though if you haven’t seen TUS by now…) We know Keyser is fast on his feet and can open and use a lighter single-handedly — then we see Verbal, limping and unable to work a lighter with two hands. It was too obvious they were making them way too dissimilar.
However, THE USUAL SUSPECT had cool dialogue, great acting, and even knowing the twist (then and now) if I see this playing on tv I’ll almost always start watching it again. The movie doesn’t hinge solely on the twist, but it has so much more going for it it’s still a great viewing. I think Shaymalan’s movies (except for THE SIXTH SENSE) lack anything but the twist. They do make good fodder for ROBOT CHICKEN, though!
Yeah, The Usual Suspects was pretty obvious. The Village was even more obvious. The Sixth Sense, on the other hand, was one I did not figure out, which made it more enjoyable for me.
Oh, and yeah, it doesn’t matter that the twist in Suspects is obvious. It’s not what is revealed at the end, but how it’s revealed that’s important. Even knowing what’s going to happen, it’s still one of the most thrilling movie endings I’ve ever seen, simply because of the way it’s directed and edited.
It’s good to know that there are other intelligent people watching movies. I figured Sixth Sense out about the same time, although Stacie doubted it until about three quarters of the way through.
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That said, the one thing I always give the guy credit for, he knows how to come up with an interesting premise. GOING somewhere with it, on the other hand…
Yeah, I pretty much nailed The Village early on. The one bit of doubt I had was that in the first scene, we see a funeral where the tombstone reads “1903” (or some year like that.) I couldn’t explain that away and it’s an utter cheat that’s there only to mislead the audience. After all, the younger members of the village wouldn’t realize that the year 2004 should look more modern. It’s just a number to them.
I didn’t get every last nuance of Shutter Island, but I was 80% dead on and like many here, I was halfway there just from the trailer. I also had no idea there was going to be a twist in THE OTHERS (that Nicole Kidman horror film) but I guessed that one 40 minutes in too.
The point where I figured out was as it turns out, the point where in one of the bonus features MNS or someone else involved said that they thought people would catch on but never did (a line that the boy says). I bet that even if most people didn’t clue in then, that I’m not the only one who twigged in at that point.
Er, that last comment refers to 6th Sense
I THINK i saw that redband trailer for that about 6 months ago…. isnt that the movie where a bunch of people are trapped in an elevator, and they are told that one of them must kill another before they can get out?
There seems to be quite a lot of these ‘X presents…’ type of projects on the horizon, whether it’s M NIght, Eli Roth or Guillermo del Toro, but the problem for the general film-goer is that they don’t necessarily know how involved that producer is in the project. Personally, i think there’s a hëll of a difference between a producer who attaches his name to a film in order to get it a release date and/or a bit of publicity; and somebody who may be actively involved, whether it’s collaborating on the script, hand-picking the director or whatever. Ultimately I think people may have to do a little bit of research as far as how much that producer is involved. For me, the name attached is not necessarily sufficient to go an see it.
I think moviegoers are going to have to crack the code and realize that “So and So Presents” means that the named person didn’t write the screenplay and didn’t direct the film. Those are the two bottom lines. Their actual involvement could be anything from being on set and kibbitzing to having written a one line springboard and cashing the check, and thus needs to be disregarded altogether since it’s impossible to know.
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I see a lot of movies.
I mean A LOT of movies in the theater (50-70 a year. I don’t watch rentals or net flix at home, prefer to see them in the theater)
So when I saw the “Devil” trailer in the theater, I thought, that might not be bad to see for a matenee price on a weekend afternoon. BUT, when they mentioned M. Night Shaymalan, my immediate reaction was NO WAY!
If the producers of this film want an audience, why did they add “From the man who has been responsible for some of the worst films made in the last decade” as a tag line?
Yours was the exact reaction that was audible to me at the theater. In neither showing was the audience particularly hard to read. During trailers that were of no interest to them, they were chatting or commenting. “Devil” came on and bam, dead silence…until Night’s name came on. Then derisive laughter. If I’m the screenwriter or director, I’m banging my head against the wall.
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Neither supporting or thumbing my nose at “Devil” or Night (as his friend call him – I’m not one), but he did have a pretty extensive in-studio interview/appearance on the “Preston & Steve” show on WMMR in Philadelphia this morning. He explained the process of the development of the movie and the hiring of the Dowdle brothers. I thought he came off pretty good in the interview and if I had the spare cash to be able to go to the movies, I’d probably check it out. As it is, I’m broke, so no movies for me.
Link to the podcast http://prestonandsteve.libsyn.com/daily-feed-09-13-10-
The interview was just before 9 am this morning, so you need to scan through a bit of stuff before you get to it.
I was at a party once and the conversation got movies, and I brought up how trailers can often mislead you on who worked on what giving the example of Superbad and how it’s not a Judd Apatow directed film. And this girl just starts telling me how wrong I am and clearly it’s an Apatow flick, cause you can tell just by watching it. We finally agree to disagree (even though this isn’t really a matter of opinion), but then she gives me this cold stare like she can’t believe how I could be wrong about something so obvious.
So yea I hate stupid people.
One can only hope that someday, somehow, she winds up discussing movies with Greg Mottola, director of Superbad…
What’s sad is that you could have pulled out imdb on an iPad or iPhone and SHOW her the credits and she probably would have refused to believe it. It’s a curious trait of an alarming percentage of people that, when presented with irrefutable facts that contradict their beliefs, rather than say, “Oh. Okay, obviously I’m wrong,” will instead become more entrenched in their opinions and assert that the facts are wrong.
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I remember seeing a couple of trailers where the voiceover started with “From the executive producer of [insert name of hit film]” and thinking, “From the completion-bond company that brought you Titanic…”
Signs was so bad that I would not watch another MKS film unless I was seriously drugged. That way my brain would not protest about the complete stupidity of the film.
If I saw MKS’s name on anything, I would equally give it a miss of about a lightyear. So I suspect that you are right about this film’s box office, Peter.
when I saw this trailer, I thought the name of the movie was going to be “hellevator”
I hope you get the credit when “Hellevator” turns up as a SyFy Original Movie. Unless you don’t want credit for that…
Best parody name ever.
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I’m afraid I had the same reaction; the film looked interesting until I saw M. Night’s name on it, then it became another “Shammy-Whammy” movie to me (as a friend of mine refers to his movies ^_^).
Now that I know he didn’t write it, I might see it. About another trailer that followed this one: I wonder how Stephen Hawking feels about his quote being attached to the film “Skyline”? ^_^
I did not stand “Unbreakable”.
It’s about how far a person will go to locate (or create) a hero/god to make sense out of everything.
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Well, that’s what I saw.
we’ll see about the twist. hopefully night didnt have anything to do with it there. i think the idea is good, the whole ‘devil’s meeting’ thing (http://thedevilsmeeting.com/pop-culture/devils-meeting-myth-devil-legend.html), which seems like it can totally be milked for like 100 good horror movies. hah, still prob gonna see it since ive already watched RE4!
On a slightly related tangent, the show “The IT Crowd” (about internet technology nerds) had an episode “Moss and the German” where Roy is psyched about seeing the new Quentin Tarrantino film — until Roy’s nemesis told him that it had a twist, and Roy kept trying very hard not to learn what it was until he saw the movie. It didn’t help that his boss kept trying to guess what it was: “Everybody else is dead! No, he’s dead! No, he’s a robot! No…”
Regarding The Village…before I went to see it I had read an interview that said something to the effect of, “It’s not really about a twist or anything, it’s about the personal relationships between the people in the movie.”
With that mindset going in, I rather enjoyed the film. The “twist” came pretty early in the movie, as I recall, in the sense that all the clues were there.
I couldn’t tell whether the audience liked the trailer, but I did notice some derisive laughter when Shaymalan’s name appeared.
What I want to know is why are there are so many brother directing teams? It seems like a new one pops up every month. I don’t have a brother, so I don’t know what it is about this particular relationship that compels so many of them to direct movies together, a compulsion that doesn’t seem to exist with any other relationship (since I can think of only one non-fraternal directing team that regularly works together: Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden).
Not that this answers your question directly, but I think in reality, there are more directing teams out there than we might think. But the Director’s Guild does not allow more than one director to be credited on a film – unless they are siblings. Which is why Robert Rodriguez dropped his DGA membership in order to give Frank Miller co-directing credit on Sin City.
Yep – that’s why John Carpenter gets the sole credit on Dark Star, which Dan O’Bannon, for all intents and purposes, co-directed.
I doubt having his name attached will be much of a detriment to the film – especially teens, who will be the primary audience. Most people don’t pay any attention to who made what they go see. And, as bad as most of his movies are – they still open well, and do okay financially. He’s only had one outright flop, with Lady in the Water. It’s tracking to be the biggest movie of the weekend right now.
I actually knew (screenwriter) Brian Nelson ages ago, at college. It should be pointed out that he also wrote Hard Candy, the film that first put Ellen Page on the map, before she really broke out as Kitty Pryde. (Oh, all right, before she broke out as Juno.)
What a coincidence. The trailer made me hate that movie, too.
Really? Hard Candy was pretty good.
Now I wish I’d watched the trailer before seeing this movie. Bad movie. And very Shyamalan-esque. Just the words “Everything happens for a reason” in the trailer should have scared me off, as it was very much an M. Night Shyamalan “Everything happens for a reason” movie. Which is never a good thing.