By Sarah Sluis
M. Night Shyamalan seems to be forever chasing the success of his first film, The Sixth Sense. Sometimes I wonder if all his twists are really getting worse, or if audiences have simply come to expect the unexpected, ruining the surprise. After striking out last year with The Last Airbender, which he directed but did not write, he's again chosen to direct a project that he did not write--wisely, I might add. Once titled One Thousand A.E., the futuristic sci-fi movie has been extensively reworked. What's more, the project originally had Bruce Willis, Bradley Cooper, and Gwyneth Paltrow attached. Now it has Will Smith and his son Jaden signed on for the starring roles. It must have taken a few rewrites to incorporate these casting changes, unless Bradley Cooper was playing Bruce Willis' son, which is only plausible if Willis were a teen father.
Jaden will star as a kid who must traverse an abandoned (post-apocalyptic?) Earth after a spaceship crash, in search of his father (Will Smith). Will Smith's role would be considerably smaller. In this project's favor is Will Smith's successful run of sci-fi movies, including his turn as a post-apocalyptic hero in I Am Legend. Father and son have also starred together in The Pursuit of Happyness, and Jaden held his own in the remake of The Karate Kid last year, a surprise hit. The negatives? From a publicity standpoint, the idea of family working together is endearing, but there have also been rants in the blogosphere that Will Smith is pushing both of his children (daughter Willow is a budding pop star) into the limelight. Then there's M. Night. He's gone from being a budding auteur to someone who's been pigeonholed as a "suspense & twist" director, and just hasn't been able to deliver that effectively in his subsequent films. The Last Airbender was an attempt to branch out, and that didn't work so well. In fact, The Karate Kid outperformed Airbender, with just a third of the budget. Columbia Pictures, which produced Karate Kid and is taking over this sci-fi project from sister label Sony, must be betting that Jaden's rising star power and M. Night's talent will result in a home run.
