Filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan is well known for making movies with shocking twist endings, but one of the biggest surprises in his career is an uncredited addition to his early filmography. Shyamalan quickly became a household name following the monumental success of The Sixth Sense in 1999, though this was not his first film as either director or screenwriter. The director of the upcoming home invasion thriller Knock at the Cabin is well known for making movies in the horror and sci-fi genres, which is what makes the revelation of his early screenwriting efforts so unexpected.
M. Night Shyamalan helped to reinvigorate the horror genre at the end of the 1990s with The Sixth Sense, and he followed up the successful supernatural narrative several years later with the alien invasion blockbuster, Signs. In between these two horror films, Shyamalan made Unbreakable, the first film in a superhero trilogy that was completed with Split and Glass nearly two decades later. Shyamalan has rarely worked outside the horror and sci-fi genres, although in 2002 he admitted to polishing the final draft of a popular romantic comedy.
In several interviews Shyamalan gave while promoting the release of Signs, the director revealed that he had been hired to work on the screenplay for She’s All That, the 1999 teen adaptation of My Fair Lady. Despite pushback against these claims by the credited screenwriter R. Lee Fleming Jr. in the years that followed these interviews, director Robert Iscove confirmed Shyamalan’s involvement in the She’s All That (which was rebooted by Netflix) DVD commentary track. In an interview for a 2013 article (via Entertainment Weekly), former head of development at Miramax Jack Lechner also backed up these claims, saying that Shyamalan “did a solid rewrite … He made it deeper, made the characters richer.” The fact that such a well-known sci-fi and horror figure was involved in a quintessential 90s comedy so early in his career is incredibly surprising, to say the least.
Why Did M. Night Shyamalan Work On She’s All That?
Although M. Night Shyamalan has never explained his reasons for working on She’s All That, it makes more sense given the type of movies that he has subsequently become known for making. First, Shyamalan worked on the script for She’s All That while he was still writing the screenplay for The Sixth Sense and wasn’t the established director he is today. She’s All That was likely a stepping stone for the filmmaker as he built connections in Hollywood. He is also credited with writing the screenplay for the family film Stuart Little in 1999, which nobody has disputed – another potentially questionable addition to his resumé.
Looking at Shyamalan’s early filmmaking efforts, She’s All That and Stuart Little are not as out of place as they seem. Prior to making The Sixth Sense, for instance, Shyamalan wrote and directed the heartwarming family film, Wide Awake, which followed a 10-year-old boy’s comedic search for God following the death of his grandfather. Like She’s All That, his directorial debut was also a coming-of-age film. Praying with Anger is a drama about an Americanized East Indian teenager who learns about his heritage after being sent to his home country. Although M. Night Shyamalan is best known for thrillers, these first films and early screenplay work show his interests may be more diverse than a majority of his filmography seems to indicate.
