It may seem a minor point, but Shyamalan is currently only 42 years old. The Sixth Sense came out when he was just 29. For a director, that’s exceptionally young, which again points to why there was so much hope around what his career would bring. But just as there seemed like he had plenty of time to improve and perhaps establish himself as a top tier director, he still has a lot of time to get his game back.
What’s more, his movies are performing rather well at the box office. Even if After Earth turns out to be another stinker, the fact that Will Smith is the face of it is sure to result in some sort of box office success. And that will only help facilitate future work for the director. Even if he didn’t make a good movie for another ten years, he’d be just a little older than David Fincher is now; surely he’d still have the capacity to churn out something good. I may be overdoing it with the optimism, but there’s something to be said for a filmmaker perfecting his craft over time, and in the case of M. Night Shyamalan the path may be a little more windy and rocky than for his contemporaries, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make it to the same place.
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