To Shyamalan, or not to Shyamalan?

In 1999, The Sixth Sense came out and everyone fell in love with it. It's one of those classic "you've gotta see it" movies. It was also the first big hit for director M. Night Shyamalan. Movie lovers were eager to see what else this promising new director could come up with, and well, he's not exactly living up to his earlier greatness. Here is a graph of his movie's IMDB ratings in chronological order:

Oh boy. That's not looking too good. Okay, well, IMDB votes aren't completely representative of everyone. Let's take a look at how the critics have rated the same movies according to Rottentomatoes.com

Wow, that's actually worse. But I must say they aren't all terrible. Unbreakable is an underrated, pseudo-superhero movie that more people ought to see. And I'm one of the few people who was a fan of The Village, but, again, I'm an outlier. I gave Lady in The Water a chance and it was just a huge waste of time and money, so I didn't even bother with The Happening or The Last Airbender. (The wind?!? The antagonist in The Happening is the wind? Seriously?)

A few years ago there was a Facebook group that was raising money to send M. Night Shyamalan back to film school, and you can't really blame them for making the group. His next movie is called After Earth which is set to be released next year. This film looks like a promising offering from Shyamalan being the first film he hasn't written himself. Academy Award Winner Stephen Gaghan (Traffic) and Book of Eli writer Gary Whitta are penning this script. Will Smith is the lead actor in the movie, and that can never hurt a film's chances. 

Maybe that group convinced him to go to film school after all.