After cinematic atrocities like The Village, The Happening, and The Last Airbender, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan became such a joke to the degree that his name on the trailer for Devil--for which he earned a story credit—got laughs from moviegoers across America. Little wonder then that Columbia Pictures carefully hid his writer and director credits on the marketing for the Will Smith/Jaden Smith vanity project vehicle After Earth. But doing press for the picture, the twist-obsessed filmmaker has revealed something truly shocking: he was the ghostwriter for popular 1999 teen-centered rom-com She's All That.
Speaking with Movies.com, Shyamalan spoke about his range, and then admitted that The Sixth Sense (which he wrote and directed) and Stuart Little (which he has a screenplay credit on) were not the only 1999 movies he worked on. After teasing he'd ghost-written a movie that year as well, he confesses:
"I ghost-wrote the movie She's All That. "
Cue the string section to score this stunning reveal! You mean to say that R. Lee Fleming Jr., the writer of the Kirsten Dunst/Sisqo rom-com Get Over It was not the film's sole scribe! Our world is forever rattled!
Here's the She's All That trailer to jog your memory:
Maybe it's not a bad idea for Shyamalan to attempt to tout his range as a writer, considering his string of movies dependent on a mind-bending third-act twist gave him a reputation for being one-note. The release of After Earth has done little to help his reputation as it's been roundly scorned by critics (11% on Rotten Tomatoes). More painfully, the sci-fi adventure budgeted at $130 million dollars has only made $47 million domestically so far, and bad word of mouth is unlikely to help it gain momentum. But some still have faith in Shyamalan. How about you?
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