Biography

M. Night Shyamalan

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Overview

Born
August 6, 1970 · Mahé, Pondicherry, India
Birth name
Manoj Nelliyattu Shyamalan
Height
5′ 10″ (1.78 m)

Mini bio

Born in Puducherry, India, and raised in the suburban Penn Valley area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, M. Night Shyamalan is a film director, screenwriter, producer, and occasional actor, known for making movies with contemporary supernatural plots.

He is the son of Jayalakshmi, a Tamil obstetrician and gynecologist, and Nelliate C. Shyamalan, a Malayali doctor. His passion for filmmaking began when he was given a Super-8 camera at age eight, and even at that young age began to model his career on that of his idol, Steven Spielberg. His first film, Praying with Anger (1992), was based somewhat on his own trip back to visit the India of his birth. He raised all the funds for this project, in addition to directing, producing and starring in it. Wide Awake (1998), his second film, he wrote and directed, and shot it in the Philadelphia-area Catholic school he once attended--even though his family was of a different religion, they sent him to that school because of its strict discipline.

Shyamalan gained international recognition when he wrote and directed 1999's The Sixth Sense (1999), which was a commercial success and later nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Shyamalan team up again with Bruce Willis in the film Unbreakable (2000), released in 2000, which he also wrote and directed.

His major films include the science fiction thriller Signs (2002), the psychological thriller The Village (2004), the fantasy thriller Lady in the Water (2006), The Happening (2008), The Last Airbender (2010), After Earth (2013), and the horror films The Visit (2015) and Split (2016).
- IMDb mini biography by: < mwprods@mindspring.com> and Pedro Borges

Family

Spouse
Children
Parents

Trademarks

Frequently uses Philadelphia as the backdrop in his movies. As seen in the films Wide Awake (1998), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), Signs (2002) and The Village (2004).
Having some sort of twist in the end or surprise ending in his films
Frequently uses shots of people's reflections in various objects
Many of his films involve two ordinary individuals with extraordinary abilities or events happening to them. One of the people either has connections to a child or is a child, and the one connected to the child is always having marital difficulties.
Frequently uses fluttering curtains, such as when Bruce Willis discovers the victimized mother in Unbreakable (2000) and in the last shot of Signs (2002).

Trivia

His middle name "Night" was made up during college.
Became the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood when Disney gave him $5 million to write Signs (2002).
Completed 45 homemade movies by age 17.
His three supernatural thrillers, The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), and Signs (2002), grossed over $1.3 billion worldwide.
Turned down the opportunity to direct the Harry Potter franchise on three separate occasions. He was first offered Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) on a recommendation from friend Steven Spielberg (who had previously been considered to direct), but turned it down due to post-production commitments on his own film Unbreakable (2000). After the massive success of his own film, Signs (2002), Shyamalan was once again offered Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and later Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), turning down the former to direct his own project The Village (2004) and the latter to work on his since aborted adaptation of the Yann Martel novel The Life of Pi.

Quotes

I play for a living...Success is tied to a feeling of magic, which I can protect.
My hope is we broke so many rules we created a new rule.
The idea is to always go for the thing that's risky. I want to be courageous and original. And original means, you don't know what 'colour' movie you just saw.
Movie making is not like other artforms, like painting, or writing a novel, because that can be disgested or interpreted... It takes two years to make each one of these, and it's always judged on money.
All of my movies have made money, and that's important for me - it's my job to make money for the studio...

Salaries

The Village (2004) - $10,700,000 (Story rights ($7,200,000); Writing services ($300,000); Producing ($3,000,000); Directing ($221,000).).
Signs (2002) - $12,500,000 (writing, directing, and co-producing)
Unbreakable (2000) - $10,000,000
The Sixth Sense (1999) - $3,000,000