M. Night Shyamalan Says Studio Was ‘Too Scared’ to Market ‘Unbreakable’ as a Comic Book Film in 2000 Because ‘No One Will Go See a Movie About a Comic Book

By Zack Sharf

According To The variety M. Night Shyamalan participated in a career retrospective interview with GQ magazine to mark the release of his latest directorial effort, “Trap,” and remembered studio executives not wanting to market 2000’s “Unbreakable” as a comic book movie. How the times have changed. Shyamalan and star Bruce Willis were coming off the enormous success of “The Sixth Sense,” which earned $672 million worldwide and picked up six Oscar nominations, including best picture. Shyamalan remembered the studio wanting to market “Unbreakable” like a horror-thriller even though it was a superhero movie.

“If you deny what it is because you’re afraid of it being different, then you’re stealing all of its strength,” Shyamalan said. “They were like, ‘We had one of the biggest movies of all time and the same two people are making another movie. Let’s make it look like that movie.’ As opposed to what it was, which was the beginning of an entire genre. They didn’t realize it because they were too scared to say the words ‘comic book.’”

“That was literally the thing that was like, no one will go see a movie about a comic book,” he remembered the studio saying. “That was literally like, you can’t do it. And I’m like, ‘I love it! Maybe there’s other people that would think of this as myth as well and enjoy it.’ In my mind, it was a movie that was, ‘The guy is in a crash, an accident where everyone dies except him, and he doesn’t have a scratch on him, and someone says, “I know why that happened. You’re a real-life superhero.”‘ That’s the movie, but that was never said or sold.” Because the studio would not market “Unbreakable” as a comic book movie, it led to a lot of fan disappointment when the movie did not turn out in the same vein as “The Sixth Sense.”

“Other people were coming and going, ‘That wasn’t scary,’” Shyamalan said. “And I was like, ‘Who said it was going to be that? Who said it was going to be scary?’ And so, [I learned] a really interesting lesson about, if I am going to be the purveyor of original stories for my life, I have to get partners that understand that we’re going to reinvent every single time, and we should celebrate that.”

“Unbreakable” opened in fall 2000, a few months after the first “X-Men” movie started to popularize the comic book movie genre in Hollywood. It wasn’t until 2002’s “Spider-Man” that the genre exploded in terms of popularity at the box office.

“Trap” is now playing in theaters nationwide. Watch Shyamalan’s full retrospective interview with GQ magazine in the video below.