Shyamalan Vs. Shyamalan Will Be Summer 2024’s Best Box Office Battle

Two upcoming horror movies will create a friendly box office rivalry between two Shyamalan directors. While M. Night Shyamalan has been celebrated for his classic horror films such as Signs (2002), The Sixth Sense (1999), Unbreakable (2000), and Split (2016), his daughter Ishana Shyamalan will be making her feature film directorial debut with The Watchers. A graduate of New York University, Ishana previously directed six episodes of the Apple TV+ original series Servant starring Lauren Ambrose, Toby Kebbell, and Rupert Grint. Ishana also wrote 10 episodes of Servant including the critically acclaimed season 4, episode 9 titled “Awake.”

After getting a successful start as a writer and director of television, Ishana Shyamalan is poised to make an exciting feature film debut with The Watchers, which she also wrote the screenplay for. Based on the thrilling novel of the same name by A.M. Shine, The Watchers follows the story of a young artist who is stranded in an expansive forest in Ireland. The protagonist Mina, played by played by Dakota Fanning, is trapped and stalked by mysterious creatures alongside three people she has never met. The film also stars Olwen Fouéré, Georgina Campbell, and Siobhan Hewlett.

The Watchers & Trap Both Release In Summer 2024 (Both Directed By Different Shyamalans)

The Watchers releases in June & Trap hits theaters in August

M. Night Shyamalan also has an upcoming summer release starring Oppenheimer actor Josh Hartnett called Trap, which recently debuted its first trailer at CinemaCon 2024. Trap is an original work written by Shyamalan that follows a father, who is also a serial killer, who takes his daughter to see her favorite singer at a concert venue. Hartnett’s protagonist discovers that the entire concert is a set-up to trap the serial killer, ie him, which creates a captivating and thrilling scenario that focuses on Hartnett’s corrupt main character. Trap is currently expected to hit theaters on August 9, 2024.

Both Trap and The Watchers follow a similar formula in centering around their star protagonists, enlisting a relatively lesser-known cast around them. Trap will become Shyamalan’s sixteenth directorial effort after releasing his directorial debut in 1992 with his student film Praying With Anger. Like her father, Ishana also attended NYU and directed her first feature film in her early twenties in what could be the start of a very successful filmmaking career. M. Night produced The Watchers, so Ishana likely had plenty of guidance from her father in creating her very first feature-length film.

Predicting Who Will Win Summer 2024’s Shyamalan Battle

Hartnett will still be riding off post-Oppenheimer momentum in Trap

While making a directorial debut is no easy feat, Ishana Shyamalan’s The Watchers has a lot of early momentum behind it which could propel her summer horror film ahead of her father’s at the 2024 box office. Both Trap and The Watchers have compelling premises, but The Watchers is based on an established work of fiction whereas M. Night’s films are always completely original and packed with shocking and often unhinged twists. M. Night’s last two feature films, Old (2021) and Knock at the Cabin (2023), received slightly positive but ultimately underwhelming reviews, earning Rotten Tomatoes scores of 50% and 67%, respectively.

When M. Night Shyamalan’s original concepts pay off, they become iconic moments of modern cinema. When his films miss the mark, such as After Earth (2013) and The Last Airbender (2010), audiences are typically fairly unforgiving in their criticisms. Trap has the elements to become one of the best horror thrillers of 2024, especially with the talented Hartnett in the driver’s seat, and Shyamalan’s latest films have still been highly profitable despite their lackluster reviews. Fanning has had a strong critical showing with The Equalizer 3 and Netflix’s Ripley, but Hartnett’s star power should attract large crowds in his first film after Oppenheimer.

The Trap Has Another Shyamalan Connection

Saleka, the singer performing in Trap, is also M. Night’s daughter

The Watchers also has another Shyamalan connection in one of its cast members. Saleka, the musician performing in Trap, is another one of M. Night’s daughters. Apart from being the older sister of Ishana and eldest daughter of M. Night, Saleka is also a real-life R&B singer-songwriter, adding another dimension to the familial aspect of The Watchers. The Watchers is also just the second film that M. Night Shyamalan has produced without writing and directing, the first of which was 2010’s Devil directed by John Erick Dowdle. Regardless of whether The Watchers outperforms Trap at the summer 2024 box office, it will be a memorable film for the Shyamalan family.