M. Night Shyamalan says he “felt so empty” making The Last Airbender and After Earth.
Shyamalan got his career started as a director making critically beloved films like 1999’s The Sixth Sense (he made 1992’s Praying with Anger and 1998’s Wide Awake prior to that), 2000’s Unbreakable, and 2002’s Signs.
He then made 2004’s The Village and 2006’s Lady in the Water, neither of which were as well received as his previous movies.
Speaking with The Atlantic, however, Shyamalan said he still loves Lady in the Water and that, if he were to make The Village again in 2024, there’s very little that he’d change about the movie.
What did M. Night Shyamalan say about The Last Airbender and After Earth?
Following that, Shyamalan made 2008’s The Happening, 2010’s The Last Airbender, and 2013’s After Earth. All three films also received negative reviews from critics and fans alike.
Shyamalan told The Atlantic that working on The Last Airbender and After Earth was his “hired gun” phase, meaning that he was working on projects that were based on other people’s ideas rather than his own.
“I’m so bad at that,” Shyamalan said. “I’m so bad at it, and I felt so empty.”
Following those films, Shyamalan made 2015’s The Visit, which generally received positive reviews and brought him back into the limelight. He then went on to make 2016’s Split, 2019’s Glass, 2021’s Old, and 2023’s Knock at the Cabin, some of which were more successful than others but all of which found an audience.
His next movie, Trap, will be released in United States theaters on August 2, 2024. It sees Josh Hartnett playing a serial killer dubbed “The Butcher” who takes his younger daughter, played by Ariel Donoghue, to a pop concert, only to then realize that the entire event is a decoy set by the police in an attempt to catch him.
