M. Night Shyamalan is getting closer to an 'Unbreakable' sequel

If the box office numbers hold up over the weekend, M. Night Shyamalan's After Earth will be another in a string of poorly-received films for the once-promising director. The reviews have been hella harsh, including my own, and its debut on Friday only pulled in $9.8M, putting it behind Fast & Furious 6 and Now You See Me. It's my believe that Shyamalan is better than the crap he's been putting out there for the last few years. His talent may be in making smaller, high-concept character films rather than big budget spectacles. The Sixth Sense and Signs are two such films, but many (myself included) consider his comic book style film Unbreakable to be his most successful effort from a creative standpoint.

When Unbreakable opened in 2000, Shyamalan suggested that he had plans to make it into a complete trilogy. The original story starred Bruce Willis as a man who, through a series of incidents, comes to discover that he has superhuman strength and invulnerability, while Samuel L. Jackson is budding villain with "brittle bone" syndrome. A few years ago, Shyamalan said that he had cannibalized his Unbreakable 2 story as part of his abandoned Night Chronicles series, which included the single-set horror, Devil. So he said a new idea would have to be found, and maybe he's found what that idea is. While talking to HuffPo and various other sites, Shyamalan talked about his plans for a sequel, and how he's personally connected to every film he undertakes....

Shyamalan: "I want it to happen, too [but]....'It's such a fun thing' is squashing my ability to find the thing that's connecting me with it... So, slowly I'm getting a story in my head that I feel like is able to tell what I'm feeling right now."

He also gives a small glimpse at what that story could entail, and how his own feelings will influence it...

Shyamalan: "Slowly I’m getting a story in my head that I feel like is able to tell what I’m feeling right now…  The story of a guy who kind of wakes up with a little gray feeling in the morning, I love that character. It’s something that I feel and I want to talk more about that character."

Before that ever happens, Shyamalan says he wants to make a micro-budgeted, "hyper-small' film, and he may have an idea for the tone of that one as well, or at least for something he'd like to do in the future....

Shyamalan: "Left to my own devices, I'd definitely do [something like] 'The Tree of Life.' That's where I would go. I'd love to do that -- ambiguous and quiet and all that stuff."

The problems with After Earth go way beyond Shyamalan, so hopefully it won't damage his career so much that we never get to see him return to his strengths.