Manoj Night Shyamalan’s film “Split” shocked the entertainment industry this weekend, opening to over $40 million according to Box Office Mojo, approximately double expectations. In an environment where every movie coming out is a sequel or franchise launcher, this opening is not only solid, but near miraculous.

This leads to the question though, how did this happen? For a long time, the name “M. Night Shyamalan” spelled doom for a film. Now it appears he’s back, and possibly stronger than ever.

Think about what a prolific career this guy has had, and right now he’s at the ripe age of 46. Most directors of studio features really don’t get their break until much later in life, so for Shyamalan to get his start this young is really an anomaly. Let’s take a look at how Shyamalan got here.

He immediately broke onto the scene in 1996 with the cultural phenomenon “The Sixth Sense,” shocking audiences around the world with a plot twist I won’t spoil. He got a few Oscar nods, and naturally, he became the new hot director in Hollywood.

What does Hollywood do with hot directors? Throw as much money at them as possible. While “The Sixth Sense” was Shyamalan’s third film, it was really the debut of his “brand.” It was a movie of high quality, but it also had the signature aspects his films would later show — specifically, those crazy twists.

Shyamalan followed up “The Sixth Sense” with “Unbreakable,” a fascinating film about a superhero, of all things — talk about being ahead of his time. The film was well made, audiences were receptive and it actually set the stage for “Split.” However, the one-two punch of these films’ successes begin the downfall in this fascinating Hollywood fable.
Now that Shyamalan’s brand was firmly established, studios felt comfortable giving him more money, and he felt more comfortable doing wacky things. And for a bit, it actually worked.

“Signs,” while strange, was still a huge hit. With every success though, his films got weirder and more nonsensical, and then less successful. “The Village,” which despite its amazing twist, was a mediocre movie at best, and proved a mild financial victory. Still successful though, Shyamalan continued to go down the rabbit hole, as “Lady in the Water” bombed hard. He followed this flop with “The Happening,” which not only had a twist, but is now considered one of the worst twists in modern film history.

Over the course of 12 years, Shyamalan went from a young, respected auteur to a joke. His own movies have stopped making money, and artistically they were just getting ridiculous.

Now that Shyamalan’s own material had fallen flat, it seemed he didn’t even try to find artistic redemption, and you can feel him cashing the paychecks in his films. We have “The Last Airbender,” what many consider a butchering of a beloved series, and then “After Earth,” which was universally disliked. Studios were hiring him to have a name on the poster, and he’s not giving them much more.

Last year, though, everything changed. “After Earth,” according to Box Office Mojo, had a budget of $130 million, so naturally, he followed that up with “The Visit,” which had a budget of $5 million. M. Night Shyamalan was an economy in himself, and the bubble finally burst. His films kept getting larger and larger and failing harder and harder, so he started over, scaled down, and went back to basics. The funny thing is that “The Visit” was his best received movie in easily a decade, and even grossed more than “After Earth” despite having a budget 26 times smaller.

Fast forward to today, where “Split” opened to $40 million, by far Shyamalan’s largest opening since “The Village.” Made for a lean $5 million, as reported by Forbes, he has once again gone to the winning formula of making a small, but well thought out movie. Sure, there’ll be twists and turns — it’s still him — but they’ll be smart and not for pure shock value.

Shyamalan’s career reads like a Hollywood parable. Biblical in a sense, we see the tortured young director whose downfall is a direct result of his success. Only when the budgets get slashed and star power goes away does he find success again.

This is a lesson for Hollywood that throwing money at something does not make a success, but throwing brains and heart at something makes it a success. So next time you hear your favorite director is getting a franchise film, don’t get too excited because it might not go too well. Just know that if the film flops, your favorite director is still under there. And they will likely come back.

Erik Benjamin is a sophomore television, radio and film major. His column appears weekly in Pulp. You can email him at ebenjami@syr.edu or follow him @embenjamin14 on Twitter.

Published on January 23, 2017 at 10:09 pm