M. Night Shyamalan is back. The Unbreakable and Sixth Sense director is helming Fox’s adaptation of Blake Crouch’s novel, Wayward Pines. Shyamalan’s new project has some remember one of his last adaptations, Avatar the Last Airbender. Now, Shyamalan is reflecting on both experiences, and why he didn’t got the “Megan Fox Transformers” route on Airbender.
M. Night Shyamalan recently set down with IGN where he opened up about his latest adaptation, Fox’s Wayward Pines:
"I think the four things I've adapted are Stuart Little -- which I just wrote -- Avatar: The Last Airbender, After Earth, and now Wayward Pines. With both Stuart Little and Wayward Pines, I was just a part of the process. I think it was really wonderful and healthy; I approached it like -- I want to do right by the material, and I want to help people create the tone and that kind of thing.
“The other two were more taking it and trying to make it my own, which is really a different thing entirely. With Wayward, I never felt like it was mine. I felt like I was in charge of it and stimulated by it and inspired by it.”
M. Night Shyamalan went on to discuss his very poorly received live action adaptation of the animated Nickelodeon show Avatar the Last Airbender:
"It's really weird because on the show the average age was, like, nine-years-old. My child was nine-years-old. So you could make it one of two ways. You could make it for that same audience, which is what I did -- for nine and 10-year-olds -- or you could do the Transformers version and have Megan Fox. I didn't do that. That would have felt like, 'Well, I'm going to make a movie about a kids show that my 10-year-old is watching and not make it for her. I make it for my guy friends.' That felt like a betrayal of the innocence of the piece.”
Shyamalan went on to imply that there was some pressure to age the character’s up so Megan Fox could be cast:
“So, you know, these are business propositions, which have very little interest to me, of like, 'Hey, the business proposition is to get Megan Fox to be...' You know, 'You should age it 'til it's that.' That wasn't the source material, you know what I mean? Whereas, also, like a Transformers, it's really fascinating, because it's valid for Transformers. You know why it's valid? Because it's the little boys that were playing with them are grown up now. They're the ones who wanted to see Megan Fox. That's absolutely appropriate, you know what I mean?"
What do you think about Shyamalan’s comments? What did you think of the live action Airbender film? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of the page.
