M. Night Can't Catch a Break

Poor M. Night Shyamalan. The dude just can't catch a break. His new Will Smith-starring sci-fi pic After Earth adventure is currently scoring 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. Variety has called it "listless", a "non-happening", "a leaden affair". Twitch says it's "apocalyptically bad". Film Freak Central gave it ZERO STARS, describing it as "a thinly-sketched, unbearably haughty survival story that cites Moby-Dick as it steals from Suzanne Collins". And so it goes. None of this is surprising of course, given the steady, consistent decline of the Shyamalan brand over the last six films he's made since his breakthrough hit The Sixth Sense. The marketing team at Sony were well-aware of this too, pre-empting any damage wrought by audience expectations ("It's that twist guy again!") by scrubbing his name clean from promo materials to focus on Will Smith. So what happened to M. Night Shyamalan? Have a read of Nick Schager's piece at Village Voice. After Earth comes out in NZ on June 20. Oh yeah, M.'s still talking about doing Unbreakable 2...