ShockTillYouDrop.com has an exclusive interview with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs) talking about his new apocalyptic thriller The Happening, starring Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel, which opens on Friday, June 13.
Here’s a brief taste:
ShockTillYouDrop.com: There’s definitely apocalypse in the air right now. Global warming is such a prevalent danger and there are movies like “I Am Legend” and “The Mist” and “The Road.” You wrote this movie some time ago, so was that something hanging over you that you’ve wanted to get out for a long time?
M. Night Shyamalan: It’s interesting ’cause yeah, when I visited Will (Smith) when he was in New York shooting, I was like “What are you making?” and he described what he was making, and I was like “Oh my God!” (laughs) “Wow, that’s weird!” And he’s like, “Why? What are you making?” and I’m like “Kind of an interesting kind of movie, similar in a way.” It makes sense to me, because it comes out of the times. We’re all worried about things and unsure about our world. You start going to these catastrophe places in our heads. In better times, you probably won’t see a lot of them; maybe there’ll be a lot more broad comedies, I don’t know. (laughs)
Shock: With all the paranoia in the air, can this movie still be seen as escapism?
Shyamalan: Yeah, maybe just kind of outletting a fear and talking about a fear in a way that’s safe and so it makes you feel better. You go, “Oh, in this scenario I’m freezing, and then you go, oh, it isn’t that bad.” (laughs)
Shock: What about the fear of terrorism? It’s mentioned in the trailer and it’s seen as the first possibility for what happens in the movie, much like the blackout five years ago. Immediately, we thought it was terrorists.
Shyamalan: Everything, right? Everything goes wrong and it’s like “Oh my God, it’s them!” Yeah, it’s a paranoid world right now and in a way, that’s what it’s called, “terror-ism.” It’s supposed to invoke terror in everything we do, and we’re feeding right into it. The reverse would be the right way to be, open and vulnerable and strong and all but you don’t need to be scared of every human being on the planet.
And you can read the full interview here!
