The Happening Closing in on the Black

J's wife said she saw The Happening over the weekend, despite having the chance to see Get Smart. We all agreed she should've called us for advice, since she lacked the appropriate ex ante information to know how much the world hates it, but I think we were all at the same time kind of happy that one of us had seen it and could tell us what it was like. Turns out, it's as bad as the world says it is. But the good news for Mr. Shyamalan is that it's closing in on its $60 million budget. It brought down another $10 million this weekend, bringing it within striking distance of the black, and pretty much guaranteeing that the movie was worth being made. That's good for Mr. Shyamalan, as I think the last one did not.

Update: Actually, going through his movies, they all have really modest budgets. For someone who makes something in the vicinity of science fiction, he's got really low budgets. The Sixth Sense had a budget of $40m, but went on to make almost $300m domestically (not counting international revenue or DVD revenue). Unbreakable did worse, but still squeezed out a profit, and had a budget of $75m. Signs had a $72m budget, but made $227m domestically (again, excluding int'l and DVD). The Village had $60m budget, but made $115m domestically. The Lady in the Water, which bombed, still didn't do too bad by movie standards. It had a $70m budget, but only made $42m domestically (but made $72m internationally). I'm just guessing, but I bet the typical movie has far worse losses than that.

Which says to me two things. First, Shyamalan's movies have modest budgets, and so very high returns on investment. Two, he appears to be pretty bankable - even when his movies tank, they still manage to squeeze out small profits. He's operating in a genre (sci-fi, fantasy, mystery) which is in the best position to be massively successful for a studio, if he hits gold, which is probably why they give him a chance. So, the downside for them is the movie does poorly, but because they're cheap, not too bad. But if it does hit, it's a huge ROI for them.