I have an update on this one. The film is called “Remain,” and is set to start production in August. Shyamalan will also be working with a new DP on this one as Adolpho Veloso, who shot the acclaimed “Train Dreams,” which premiered last month at Sundance, is billed as the cinematographer.
EARLIER: More details have emerged. According to Deadline, Shyamalan’s film is a “supernatural romantic thriller” based on an original story co-created by Shyamalan and bestselling novelist Nicholas Sparks (“The Notebook”). Wild team-up.
Shyamalan and Sparks are said to be independently writing a screenplay and a novel, respectively, based on the same original love story.
EARLIER: Here’s a report (via The InSneider) that Jake Gyllenhaal is in talks to star in M. Night Shyamalan’s next film.
We don’t yet have a title for Shyamalan’s latest, or what it’s about, or even if a studio acquired it, but expect the trades to add some details to this story in the coming hours and days.
Last year, Shyamalan’s “Trap” grossed $83M against a production budget of $30M. It helps that Shyamalan self-finances every movie he makes.
Despite faltering in its final few minutes, “Trap” was a pleasantly atmospheric, and nasty, cat-and-mouse game. Josh Hartnett was great. I loved the wide angled shots. It was one of Shyamalan’s better efforts of the last 15 years.
Shyamalan is a brand. His name alone being stamped on a trailer can sell a decent amount of movie tickets. The Indian-born, Philadelphia-raised filmmaker has been riffing on “Twilight Zone”-type and Hitchcock-influenced premises for close to 25 years now.
It had previously been speculated that Shyamalan might finally be looking to make “Labor Of Love,” one of the very first scripts the director sold in his career, which went to Fox in 1993, the story reportedly follows a bookstore owner who loses the love of his life in a tragic accident.
Shyamalan was tempted to shoot “Labor of Love” after completing “Unbreakable” in 2000, but then decided to make “Signs” instead. An old-school Shyamalan script might be just what the doctor ordered. The India-born American filmmaker has yet to top his early aughts twin peaks of “The Sixth Sense”/ “Unbreakable” which were released more than twenty years ago.
Shyamalan’s had many up and downs since then, constantly challenging himself, and his audience, but it seems as though Newsweek’s 2004 proclamation that he’s the “The Next Spielberg” feels rather far-fetched today.