When it comes to his original films, M. Night Shyamalan has shown a clear preference for simple titles. He began his career making movies like Praying With Anger, Wide Awake, and The Sixth Sense, but more than half of his works since then are of the one-word variety (ignoring the article "The" in The Village, The Happening and The Visit). It’s become a “thing” in his filmography, but back in 2002, he had to fight for his fifth directorial effort to be called Signs.
M. Night Shyamalan’s latest one-word title movie, Trap, arrives in theaters this Friday, and while recently talking about the work with Indiewire, the filmmaker reflected on the behind-the-scenes conflict that was caused by Signs 22 years ago. Explaining his general philosophy, Shyamalan said,
It’s an interesting thing. I was telling Warner Bros. that my experience, when we release my movies, you’re taking a common word and then you have to create another meaning from it. So it’s both easy but then also difficult to create a new association.
In the case of Signs, M. Night Shyamalan wanted audiences to think about “signs” of alien invasion – especially crop circles, which fans will remember as being a big part of the film’s marketing prior to its theatrical release. Despite the attempt at creating a direct association in the publicity, however, there were evidently concerns expressed by executives at Disney who worried that the simple approach wasn’t helping them sell the film.
Discussing the battle and how Signs as a title “speaks to him,” Shyamalan said,
The word ‘signs’ — what does that mean to anybody? But you need that crop circle. Keep on saying it. I remember when Disney was releasing that, they kept saying, ‘I think we might have a title issue. It’s just not sticking with them. They’re not remembering it.’ It’s like trying to own a common word and redefining it. But in its blandness is kind of like, ‘Hey, we’re walking very minimalist.’ Somehow it speaks to me that way.
There might have been concerns about the title clicking with people, but all that worrying evaporated when the film hit theaters in the first week of August 2002. Signs arrived on the big screen during the second week of release for Austin Powers In Goldmember (which had a stellar $73.1 million debut), but it stole the spotlight and became an instant hit – earning $60.1 million in its first three days in theaters domestically. By the end of the blockbuster sci-fi horror film's run in cinemas, it made $228 million in the United States and Canada and $408.3 million worldwide.
The title was clearly not a problem.
If you’re curious to revisit the alien invasion film, the good news is that Signs is among M. Night Shyamalan’s movies that are currently streaming and is available to watch with a Max subscription. Meanwhile, the writer/director will hope that Trap, starring Josh Hartnett ends up being as big a box office success in its debut this weekend.
