M. Night Shyamalan's "Trap" (2024)

[Alex...]

Title: Untitled M. Night Shyamalan Film

Genre: Thriller

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Release: 2024-04-05

Plot: Plot unknown.

 

[Alex...]

Deadline

 

[dpippel]

How does this guy still get hired?

 

[Malcolm R]

By making hit films that make a lot of money? Aside from the shaky debut, I think his only true mainstream bomb is Lady in the Water. There have been a couple other disappointments (Last Airbender, After Earth), but for the most part his record is pretty good.

I believe he's also self-financed most of his recent films.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

By making hit films that make a lot of money? Aside from the shaky debut, I think his only true mainstream bomb is Lady in the Water. There have been a couple other disappointments (Last Airbender, After Earth), but for the most part his record is pretty good.

I believe he's also self-financed most of his recent films.

View attachment 156905

While people can debate how they feel about his pictures, you can't fault his business sense. I think it was a brilliant move after he had done two big budget films that were not good to scale back and make a series of lower budget films that fell more in line with his sweet spot. That run from The Visit through Old should be a lesson to people in the business.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

How does this guy still get hired?

He self-finances his pictures and Universal merely distributes. He makes them with small crews on small budgets, and invests only the profits from previous releases rather than mortgaging his house or taking out unsustainable loans, so if a picture does flop, it doesn’t ruin him. But at the budgets he’s operating in, he’s recouping his investment while making exactly the films that he wants to make. I actually think it’s a pretty inspiring success story. I don’t love everything he does but I do give it all a chance. There aren’t many directors who get to make the exact film they want each time out and yet that’s exactly what he gets to do.

 

[dpippel]

Interesting, Josh. Thanks for that. I had no idea that he was basically financing his own films. All I know is that, IMO, everything he's done post-Sixth Sense has either been poor or mediocre, yet he continues to make movies. Now I know why.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

He had studio financing through Avatar The Last Airbender and After Earth and when those didn’t do well, he decided to self-finance and focus on the projects that were meaningful to him. He also has managed to keep his productions centered around his native Philadelphia, so he can be with his family, sleep in his own bed every night, and bring some money into his community by employing local actors and crews.

I like this groove he’s settled into and how he’s reinvented himself as a local filmmaker who just so happens to get worldwide distribution. For a movie like Split, he put up less than $10 million to pay for the full thing, the cast worked for less than their usual rate in exchange for a share of the profits, and it made nearly $300 million.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Interesting, Josh. Thanks for that. I had no idea that he was basically financing his own films. All I know is that, IMO, everything he's done post-Sixth Sense has either been poor or mediocre, yet he continues to make movies. Now I know why.

For me, I think he has done a great job on his run of self-financed films. You may not like them in terms of what they are about but they are well made pictures. I thought The Visit and Old were alright in terms of content, what they were about, they were not any sort of mind-blowing films but his pictures Split and Glass I was very impressed with because I felt he made two films that were far better than any Marvel or DC picture of the last 20 years on a tiny fraction of the budget. Those are rewatchable pictures whereas there is nothing that draws me back to rewatch almost all big budget films.

 

[Alex...]

 

[Alex...]

Filming begins in April

Some new info via M.Night:

“It’s a thriller. It’s very unusual and very new compared to what I’ve been trying to do [recently], but I’m feeling very excited about the story, so much so that I can’t wait to tell it to you guys.”

“I will say this, the angle into the story is why it’s so exciting. The story might be something that you’ve seen before but the angle is very, very unique – the point of view.”

 

[Malcolm R]

If he pitched the story to Universal, does this mean this is going to be a studio pic rather than another self-financed film?

 

[TravisR]

If he pitched the story to Universal, does this mean this is going to be a studio pic rather than another self-financed film?

Maybe something changed with this movie but I believe that Shyamalan gets a studio to agree to distribute and then he uses his money to make the movie.

 

[Malcolm R]

Maybe something changed with this movie but I believe that Shyamalan gets a studio to agree to distribute and then he uses his money to make the movie.

That's sort of what I guessed, but it still seems like that's allowing the studio to dictate potential content and veto ideas which seems counter to the freedom gained by self-financing.

For some reason I'd thought he just made whatever movie he wanted to make with his own money then shopped it for distribution. If Universal didn't want a particular film, it seems like there would be plenty of other takers.

 

[TravisR]

That's sort of what I guessed, but it still seems like that's allowing the studio to dictate potential content and veto ideas which seems counter to the freedom gained by self-financing.

I'm just guessing but he does need the studio's distribution so I'm assuming he'd listen to their ideas but if the studio wanted too many changes, he'd probably go to another place.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I assume if he is buying, paying with his own money to make the picture, whether they are distributing or not, they would have no say in what he does. I would guess they are signing up just to distribute not to tell him what to do. He's a pretty mainstream type of filmmaker so whatever he delivers it will have wide appeal.

 

[benbess]

The last M. Night movie is still playing, but it looks like it might be closer to a break-even situation....

Knock at the Cabin

www.boxofficemojo.com

 

[Alex...]

Film is called Trap

 

[Robert Crawford]

The thread title stays as is!

 

[Tino]

The last M. Night movie is still playing, but it looks like it might be closer to a break-even situation....

Knock at the Cabin

www.boxofficemojo.com

View attachment 176449

With a $20 million budget and considering the scaled down campaign compared to big budget tent poles, I’d say break even is about $45-50 million.