It’s been a rough few years in theaters for M. Night Shyamalan. After exploding onto the scene back in ’99 as the writer/director of the classic creeper The Sixth Sense, Night made a reputation for himself (for better or worse) as “that twist director.” That title that was all well and good until 2004′s the Village, which launched big, and then fell even bigger at the box office based on its tenuous last-act twist. His subsequent films – The Lady in the Water and The Happening – also underperformed and got excoriated by audiences and critics.
So what’s an auteur to do?
Taking a page from the George Lucas handbook (one of Night’s biggest cinematic influences), Night decided it was high time to make his epic. Startling yes, but perhaps even more surprising is that Night ventured outside of his notebook of ideas and perused the potential of others’ imaginations.
“I was trying to do a long-form movie, one that you could do over two or three movies with a long mythology,” Night says of his search, “I was toying with a lot of the franchises and thinking about them. I never found the one that was the perfect match, where I could say something about myself. I’m not good at disappearing into a movie. That’s not my thing, but I would love to find out where my accent is complementary to the piece so it feels like its true and it’s told with this thick accent that I have. The best thing that happened was that it wasn’t an agenda or anything like that. I had been looking, agents were looking, and I was offered these other franchises but this one came from my own family in the kitchen.”
Jackson Rathbone is drenched in blood from head to toe, and being dragged down a flight of cellar stairs. Somewhere, a million Twilighter hearts are weeping for the hunky young star of their favorite blockbuster. But somewhere else, horror maestro Clive Barker is smiling a wicked grin.
When MTV News recently visited the London set of “Dread,” based on a short story by the twisted mind behind “Hellraiser” and “Candyman,” things weren’t looking good for the 23-year-old actor who shot to stardom last month portraying earnest vampire Jasper Hale. But, as Jackson was eager to tell us, life has never been better.
Ed Harcourt will provide the score for the forthcoming Donnie Darko sequel, S. Darko. The British singer-songwriter told EW.com at LA’s Roxy last week, where he opened up for the Greg Dulli-Mark Lanegan fronted nü-gaze outfit, The Gutter Twins, that while he never met director Chris Fisher, he submitted three pieces of music for consideration after reading the script, and was delighted — if not a little surprised — to learn that he got the gig. The movie is slated for release in 2009, but Harcourt is already hard at work on a variety of soundscapes influenced by the music of Autechre, Aphex Twin, Phillip Glass, and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. His goal: to make it “surreal and psychedelic, just like the movie.”
Source: Hollywood Insider
“Police Academy” stars Leslie Easterbrook (‘Callahan’), Marion Ramsey (‘Hooks’) and Bubba Smith (‘Hightower’) have reunited for – sorry, not “Police Academy 8 : The Hunt for Mahoney”, but – “Daze Vol. 2”, a comedy starring Corey Haim and Gary Busey (a reunion for those two as well; they starred in the 80s spooker “Silver Bullet” together).
Newly minted indie banner High Treason Prods. has launched production on drama-thriller “Hurt,” starring Melora Walters, William Mapother, Sofia Vassilieva, Johanna Braddy, Jackson Rathbone and Ava Gaudet.
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