Devil, which will be produced by Shyamalan as part of a new deal to produce one genre movie a year under the "Night Chronicles" brand, is being adapted from an original story by the writer/director by 30 Days of Night's Brian Nelson. The movie - the plot of which is, unsurprisingly for a Shyamalan project, secret - will be directed by Drew and John Erick Dowdle of last year's Quarantine fame.

The movie is due to start production later this month.

Chris Messina makes deal with 'Devil' [Variety]

Last Tuesday io9 was a guest of Paramount, along with a few other reporters, on the set M. Night Shyamalan's latest film, The Last Airbender. We headed over to Night's favorite cinematic city Philadelphia, to see what the the director of The Sixth Sense would do with an expansive fantasy world. Night is, in a sense, building an entire world with only the cartoon and a specific, but loyal, following of fans to keep him in check (some of the biggest fans being his own daughters, who were the inspiration behind his tackling the project).

For those of you not familiar with the Avatar world, the fantastical realm is divided up into four nations: Earth, Air, Water and Fire. They lived together in peace, until the Fire Nation took out the other three, plummeting the land into war. Many years later, a bald little boy Aang (played by the adorable and new Noah Ringer) awakens to find he is the last of his kind, the Airbenders and the balance of the nation's future rests on his shoulders. Together with his newly acquired friends, a rowdy brother and sister pair Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) and the waterbending Katara (Nicola Peltz), the three set out to put the nation back on the track towards peace.

Unfortunately for them, the Fire Nation isn't too keen on the idea of Aang, and sends out a giant army after him (which you can see in the teaser) along with Prince Zuko (Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel) who's full of spite and anger. We're actually quite excited to see this total departure from Patel's previous role.

While I'm still not sure how this film is going to be marketed to those over 20 and unaware of the Airbender franchise, Night's new world certainly has a gorgeous backdrop going for it. Each set we walked on was more expansive and detailed than the last. The ice cave that holds the Moon Spirit was completely transformed into a strange and ethereal space, with a towering cherry tree looming over a reflecting pond. Every single blossom on the twisted branches was hand painted individually, with three different shades of pink. It truly felt like a mysterious oasis where brilliant green mold grows over ice.

But that wasn't even the kicker. Night has constructed a life size representation of the Fire Nation battleships, that can unleash furious fire power and where Dev Patel told us he'd spar with his crew. Dusty crumbling temples were erected, with gold statues of past Avatars, and even those can't compare to Airbender's pièce de résistance world-building moment, which just so happens to be the largest set ever built on the East Coast... which we're saving to tell you more about later.

So how much did they diverge from the cartoon, to make a story about warring nations and it's citizens who can bend the elements believable? Producer Frank Marshall explained that they have high hopes to stick to a PG rating. "I'm not even sure we want to get in the PG-13 realm," he explained.

But the director did have to whittle some things away. While taking a break from filming in the dusty floors of the North Air Temple Night told us what had to be cut: "I took away a little bit of the slapsticky stuff that was there for the little little kids, the fart jokes and things like that. We weeded that stuff away and the other stuff came out. We grounded Katara's brother, who's the comic relief in the show. We grounded him, and that really did wonderful things for the whole theme of the movie."

For a man building an entire world, he seems supremely calm and focused on set, but I was relieved to see that even he was at times overwhelmed by the sheer size of this project, "There are two and a half weeks left of not being as scared to death, but there were plenty of days where I was scared to death of what I'm doing." This film is really the first time Night has worked with elaborate CG backgrounds, or worked on constructing his own franchise, for that matter.

But I know you all want to know, what of Appa the giant white Sky Bison who flies? You've been asking ever since the film was announced. How will is it even possible to bring such a mythical creature to life? While we got to glimpse the enormous white furry top half of the magical six-legged creature (who will be part mechanical and part CG, the top half being mecha for the actors). Production Designer, Philip Messina, answered our Appa questions, reassuring us all that "I think once you see him on screen, you will see the Appa from the cartoon realm brought to life, but [that] still has the essence of his character. He has a character and a personality, he's an actor in the film to some extent."

Good luck getting those six-legs in order, guys. Even though the crew has recently wrapped filming, they still have a long road ahead of them.

The official movie site is now up and running and has HQ trailers available for download.

The clip comes in a trailer for tomorrow's Entertainment Tonight, leading Ain't It Cool to assume that the first trailer for the much-anticipated (and somewhat controversial) movie will be released online tomorrow and accompany Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen into theaters this Wednesday. We're not sure if this snippet is enough to make any judgement calls, but it does make us curious to see the whole thing...

Shyamalan told reporters he's still very interested in continuing that story of a superhuman Bruce Willis and his self-appointed nemesis, Samuel L. Jackson:

I don't know where all the parties are in the world. Sam [Jackson] is like ‘Mr. Comic Book' now. And Bruce, I don't know what he's up to. I don't know where Disney's at in their head and what kind of movies they're up for making. But yeah, I love that movie.

Night says he's also waiting for just the right story to pop into his head — or maybe just the right offer to come along? Jackson is reportedly interested in picking up where the last movie left off, so it's just a matter of whether Willis can spare the time. [MTV]

We first reported on the outcry over the all-white casting of the distinctly non-white animated characters in December, and since then, fans have continued to deluge the movie's producers with reasons why the casting is unfair. So, does the news that Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel will be taking over the role previously thought to belong to Jesse McCartney represent a victory for the fans? Well, yes and no.

On the one hand, it is a refreshing sign to see Patel take over from the none-more-white McCartney, but on the other, this change doesn't have anything to do with fan reaction; as Shyamalan explained, it's all to do with scheduling:

Jesse had tour dates that conflicted with a boot camp I always hold on my films, and where the actors here have to train for martial arts.

So, while the victory wasn't won by the fans, at least they can take some solace in the fact that McCartney was forced off the film by the pop career that they so hated. That's something, surely...?

Shyamalan cast floats on 'Air' [Variety]

Oh, and there are spoilers, although I won't give away the novel's ending or anything.

As in The Happening, people start killing themselves for no reason. Oppegaard's novel, however, starts five years into The Despair, when most of the world's population is already long dead. The last survivors are just barely hanging on, but people still kill themselves all the time. And whenever someone dies, the Collectors — mysterious black-robed figures — show up and carry the body away. Norman's wife, Jordan, kills herself at the start of the book. When the Collectors show up, Norman snaps, threatening them with a gun and then shooting one of them. And then Norman hears that Seattle is rebuilding civilization, and maybe even developing a cure for The Despair. He and his best friend Pops take a postapocalyptic road trip, confronting survivalists, feral children, packs of wild dogs and the wrath of the Collectors.

It's all written in a stark, pulpy style with the occasional stab at literariness. That makes for a quick read, and the novel's pace never flags. The characters may stare into the heart of human misery and self-destruction, but they don't linger on it, which is probably for the best in this instance. A long, unblinking gaze into a world where most of the population had offed themselves would be pretty hard to take.

Instead, you have some horrific imagery, mixed liberally with a sort of fast-paced adventure novel. Norman and his friends keep up the gallows humor, even when they're seeing, or hearing about, things like a wild dog running along with a baby in its mouth. Or a preacher shooting himself in front of his congregation, who all shoot themselves as well, until the preacher's gun runs out of bullets. Or the Utah suicide cult, whose appointed victim slashes his own throat in front of the others. Each horror passes in rapid succession, like slides in a viewmaster, and in between there's a curious warmth from the few humans who remain alive. The urge to self-destruct is always present, in every character you meet, which amps the tension and makes a miracle of mere survival.

The last quarter of the book turns into more of a standard adventure thriller, as Norman finally gets some answers about the Despair and gets sent on a secret mission to the heart of the Collectors' territory. (A place in Alaska which Norman's friend Zero, an eleven-year-old girl, dubs "Death Island," as if it was a theme park.) Norman starts pulling magical gadgets, which we didn't know he had, out of his pockets, and it gets a bit silly. But then it goes back onto the rails, and the ending is actually pretty great.

The Suicide Collectors may be the first novel ever to have a blurb from Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and reviews comparing it to Cormac McCarthy's The Road. But it sort of fits. It's a serious post-apocalyptic novel (without hardly any cheesiness or self-mockery) but with some very Stan Lee-esque plot twists and derring-do. And that's not at all a bad combination. [Amazon]

There's no way of getting around it; the announcement last week of the actors chosen to play the lead roles in the adaptation of the Nickelodeon animated series was... well, much more controversial than the filmmakers had undoubtedly intended. After all, who could find anything offensive about Twilight's Jackson Rathbone, Deck The Halls' Nicola Peltz or teen pop idol Jesse McCartney?

Let's ask some of the fans, shall we? Ahem:

They’re all caucasian. Every. Single. One. Of. Them.

*breathes*

Now that I have avoided destroying my keyboard like that famous kid on youtube, or damaging anything in my vicinities (except my blood pressure is spiking…), let’s consider this.

This is made of FAIL. EPIC FAIL. Inserting white characters, which you can see in nearly all of the show in the important and admirable roles, into a series that had a diverse cast that was incredibly admirable, and would provide a GREAT way of having minority kids in the states identify with them, is made of PHAIL. Paramount Pictures, you need to kick yourself. M. Shyamalan, please tell me, what. the. fuck? I’ll admit to knowing next to nothing of when I fuck up race-wise, (which is probably often) but I do my best to apologize and own up when it comes around. But even I would NEVER think of your mess up. I mean. Seriously.

Yes, the fact that a cartoon that is clearly filled with non-caucasian characters and based on Asian culture finds itself being... well, whitewashed when it comes to casting has definitely got people talking about the movie. Sadly, they're saying things like this:

What does this casting choice say to me, the angry Asian man? It says that every time somebody speaks more slowly and loudly to me because they assume that English isn't my first tongue, they're right to do so, because I'm not normal. It says that when my freshman year roommate thought that the delivery guy calling with my order was my dad, I shouldn't have been offended, because the guy sounded Chinese on the phone, so how was he supposed to know, right? It says that every time somebody asks me to translate a random set of pictographic characters for them, they're right to do so, because I know ancient Asian secrets. It says that when Rosie O'Donnell said that Asian people talk in alternating tones of ching chong ching chong, she wasn't being offensive, because we really do all sound like that. It says that even though Konietzko and DiMartino took pains to articulate themes of diversity and multiculturalism, all their work was for naught, because people don't really want to look at people who look like me. It says that every time somebody thinks of me as the other, they're right, because I am.

So thanks, Paramount and M. Night Shyamalan. Thanks for telling me exactly where me and mine belong in the grand scheme of things. Stupid of me to think that it could ever be anything but.

And this:

Don't even tell me they couldn't "find" enough English-speaking Asian teenage actors to play four measly character leads in the first movie. They recruited their Zuko from a band for heaven's sake (and seriously, picked the two whitest—and I'm talking about pigment here—teens I've ever seen to play the two darkest lead characters.) It follows that if they got Asian leads, they'd have to have Asian supporters since the respective nations were pretty homogenous, but you know what? Mel Gibson rounded up enough people of color to play an ancient civilization in Apocalypto; the BBC and HBO just collaborated on House of Saddam; Heroes wrangled up enough people of color to populate an Indian city and ancient Japan; even a mid-budget New Zealand production like Xena managed to film a handful of episodes set in fake!China and fake!Japan without resorting to, "here's some Caucasian people; pretend they're Asian plz"—DO NOT tell me there ain't a comparable amount of English-speaking Asians out there who'd be happy to traipse about in costume for a picture that would be the coolest thing Hollywood has ever done re: Asian culture since.. ever.

Oh, and this:

For me, as you have just read, Avatar casting is just another in a long line of disappointments I have learnt to identify, to articulate and to ultimately accept. It wasn't easy to learn to do that, to talk about my own powerlessness against racism. Avatar, now, is just another example I can bring up in a conversation about racism, cultural appropriation, whitewashing and white privilege. For my wee nephews, though, this is one of the first in a long line of explicit and unequivocal cultural cues regarding identity and race that will shape their view of the world and their place in it.

This is the manifestation of white privilege, white supremacy ideology and culture that many white people blithely continue to deny exists. White people can so blind to this privilege, it's so much the norm that they really do believe it really is only another movie, another book, another policy completely unrelated to each other. That it just so happens that the privileging of whiteness and white culture happens and ensures white cultural dominance and there are no repercussions.

My nephews will either have to succumb to it or untangle it later in life but they are already being cued to believe, to *know* that non-white people/PoC have no place as active protagonists in mainstream culture, cutural content or society. They are being taught that culture, society and the audience really means white culture, white society and white audience. The default is white and the desires and goals of mainstream white society and their identification with a product or a policy is the most important and most privileged.

My favorite response came from Glockgal; this is only a small excerpt of a much longer post:

Acting ability aside, no it is NOT RIGHT. The Avatar animated series is mired with and 100% composed of Asian influences. The world, the cultures, the people, the costumes, the script, the belief systems, the references, the mythology - everything is Asian-or-Inuit based. Casting all-white actors to play roles that should go to fully capable Asian/PoC actors is insulting and discriminatory.

As for acting ability: I refuse - refuse - to believe that there are ZERO Asian and/or PoC and/or mixed-race actors to play these parts. It's a pathetic idea that only white kids were capable of acting and looking like all four main roles... I'm glad you think it's just a movie. Must be really nice to have such a life where you don't feel discrimination, and therefore cannot possibly conceive how it must feel to have something that clearly celebrates multiculturalism taken away from you. Great! Just don't tell me to 'chill out' because I'm angry. I can make my voice heard and I want to entreat others as well. So let us cute widdle PoCs make our cute little grr!fight and you can run along pretending racism is over, okay?

As a result, a letter-writing campaign is already underway to try and get studio executives to voice complaint about the decisions, but you do have to wonder why the decision was made in the first place - Were the filmmakers just unaware of how their core audience would respond, or hoping to spark a (controllable) controversy to get people talking about the movie?

Talking to reporters on a conference call, Shyamalan explained:

Basically, I feel like I'm making the movie right now, like I'm editing it and all that stuff, because I'm doing the [pre-visualizations]. Like, if you were here, I could show you the last 30 minutes of The Last Airbender in animatic form, and it is an amazing and emotional experience just to watch that. I'm like, 'Oh, this is so exciting.' It gives you such safety, because it's such a different kind of movie than I'm used to making. But yet, as we all were, we all came kind of born out of Star Wars, and somewhere in there is the desire to return to fantasy on that level.

Sorry Night, no matter how hard you try, you are not going to make Star Wars, no matter how many times you use the word religion.

"And sometimes in my movies, like Signs, they're more overt, but sometimes — like in The Happening — they're more about faith, and not necessarily religious faith. So when he steps outside, it's really just a holy moment."

I need another director to step in and check up on this project post haste.

[Sci Fi Wire]

Talking to MTV, Shyamalan admitted that he was definitely weighing up the idea:

I tell you I get asked about it all the time, so it’s not [an idea] I ever forget... I genuinely just asked this question the other day — should I make ‘Unbreakable 2’? ...I made the mistake of getting caught up in the hype of the immediate reaction of the movie, which, experience has shown me, is not accurate to any of my movies. And If I had been more confident and said ‘I believe in that movie, I love that movie, and I should just go start writing the second one,” that would’ve been the right move. I’ve still been thinking about it a lot and wonder if it’s too late.

Jackson claims that not only was a sequel planned from the start, but it would only have been the middle of a proposed trilogy that would have seen his character, Elijah Price escape from his mental asylum and have a final showdown with Bruce Willis' David Dunn. So is it time that Shyamalan came back to what audiences want to see, instead of the latest in a series of increasingly-unsuccessful attempts to confound expectations? He's uncertain:

I do love the [comic book movie] genre, I just wanna make sure that I’m able to express who I am. I don’t want to get so lost in the subject that I have to neuter everything that’s me in it, so maybe ‘Unbreakable’ is the comic book thing I should do — I keep coming back to that.

We know that we'd rather see Unbreakable 2 instead of either The Happening's dodgy eco-terror or The Spirit's camp noir, so put us firmly in the "make it happen" category, thanks very much.

Samuel L. Jackson, M. Night Shyamalan On The ‘Unbreakable’ Sequel That Never Was, But Might Be [MTV Splash Page]

Is the rest of the world more ready for depressing ecological dystopias that fail to scare or thrill than the US? That would appear to be the message from this weekend's international movie box office results, where - unlike in the United States - M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening outgrossed rival The Incredible Hulk. But, just like Public Enemy once said, don't believe the hype. There's more to this clash of titans than meets the eye.

While it's true that The Happening made $32.1 million to Hulk's $31 million, Marvel's less-than-jolly green giant actually played in less theaters across the world and in each of those theaters, outperformed Shyamalan's dour eco-drama (The actual numbers: Happening played in 5714 theaters across 88 international markets, while Hulk was shown in 3165 theaters across 38 markets). In countries where both movies opened on the same day, Ed Norton's love letter to Bill Bixby outshone 91 minutes of Mark Wahlberg Vs. Trees on a fairly impressive level:

"The Happening" topped $1 million in 10 markets and scored first places in France with $4.7 million, in Spain with $3.8 million and in Italy with $1.9 million — with no competition from "The Incredible Hulk." It finished third in the U.K. with $3.4 million as "Hulk" easily won with $6.3 million and the third frame of "Sex and the City" took in $3.7 million.

"Hulk" generated socko Mexican biz, with $4.6 million, 86% higher than "The Happening," and Universal's biggest launch ever for that territory. The superhero pic also scored in the booming Russian market with $3.7 million, including U's biggest opening day ever on Thursday.

Universal noted "The Incredible Hulk" had easily outperformed 2003's "Hulk" in markets including South Korea, where it took $3.3 million, 88% up on its predecessor. "Hulk" grossed $113 million overseas by the end of its run. "Incredible Hulk" expands next weekend into Italy and Spain and won't face another superhero pic until Sony opens "Hancock" in early July.

The moral of this story for studio bosses? Perhaps it's "Rushing out your spooky-ooky movies worldwide before the big summer movies get released is a good idea," or maybe it's just "South Koreans apparently really, really wanted to see that new Hulk movie." Nonetheless, look at the combined grosses for the two movies and just imagine how big a movie version of Hulk vs. The Rain would be.

Happening beats Hulk overseas [Variety]

Avowed Christian Shyamalan told us that The Happening is really about religious faith, and explained that he chose Mark Wahlberg to play science teacher Elliot Moore because of the actor's intense belief in Jesus. Maybe he also chose vacant-eyed Zooey Deschanel to play his wife Alma because she looks like a little girl who needs a big strong monotheist in her life? No comment on that one from Shyamalan.

We get tipped off to the fact that this allegedly science fictional movie is really an ID tent revival in the opening scenes where Elliot teaches his science students about evolution. He explains to them that honeybees are disappearing all over the country, and asks what some possible explanations might be. Students who say things like "climate change" and "evolution" are dismissed as being "partly right." But then when a generally quiet student finally says, "It's an act of nature that we can't understand," Elliot lights up and says that's the best answer. That phrase "act of nature," which sounds suspiciously like "act of God," crops up in the movie again and again to explain why plants have suddenly decided to kill humans.

Remember, ID substitutes God for nature in its theory of evolution — ID believers think evolution happened, but that it was guided by (a Judeo-Christian) God. So an "unexplained act of nature" is pretty much the same thing as saying an "act of God" in ID-speak.

Once people in New York City start killing themselves in random, gory ways, Elliot flees with his wife Alma and his math teacher pal Julian, as well as Julian's daughter Jess. In the film's other major Christian-influenced subplot, we discover that Alma and Elliot have "been fighting" — not only does Alma have the gal to insist that they "wait to have children," but she also went out to dessert with a male colleague without telling Elliot. What? Dessert and lack of babies makes her evil? Apparently so. Julian hisses to Elliot that Alma basically isn't good wife material and that he doesn't trust her. One of the major plot points in the film is whether Alma can somehow be redeemed through her tribulations. And by redeemed, of course, I mean: Will she learn her proper place in her relationship with Elliot?

As our little band of characters flee into the Pennsylvania countryside, they gradually begin to realize that the waves of suicides might be caused by plants. We see news commentators talking about how the "attacks" probably aren't coming from terrorists. And Elliot uses the "scientific method" to deduce that plants can "spontaneously evolve" in response to a threat. Maybe plants think humans are threats, and "spontaneously evolved" in an "act of nature" to manufacture a toxin that switches off humans' self-preservation instincts? Why, we'd all just instantly commit suicide! You know, because God — erm, I mean nature — is mad at us! For doing things like not polluting and not having babies with our husbands.

Trying to look wise but merely looking blank and addled, Elliot ponders and looks into the middle distance, intoning, "Science will come up with a reason to put in the books but int eh end it's just a theory. We fail to acknowledge forces at work beyond our understanding." Well put, Mr. Science Teacher. All those atheists with that whole "evolutionary theory" thing don't realize it's just a theory! Probably everything in nature is just beyond our understanding. Let's pray.

But back to "science." Once Elliot has discovered that plants are causing the suicides, he surmises that plants only attack humans in groups. So he and Alma head off into the deepest, unpopulated countryside with three kids from a group of refugees (Julian has gone with another group to Princeton to find his wife, leaving daughter Jess with Elliot). God makes another intervention at this point.

When the group comes up on a boarded up house, they beg its occupants to let them in. Elliot, Alma, and Jess are polite, but the two boys with them aren't. They kick the doors, calling the people inside "pussies" and "bitches." So the guys inside shoot them, in randomly gory detail. Let this be a lesson to you kids: Don't curse, or you'll be killed by rednecks with guns if the plants don't get you first.

Despite all this absurdity, you've got to admire Shyamalan's amazing ability to whip out a perfectly-constructed horror/scifi plot without actually ever having any kind of monster or coherent threat. We get all the classic "scary monster" moments in this movie — people staring at stuff with horrified looks on their faces, distant screams, long tension-mounting shots in creepy houses — and yet at the moment when we expect to look into the face of The Big Bad there's literally nothing. No Cloverfield with its throbbing, toothy face, no disfigured bad guy with a bag of poison. Just beautiful fields of trees and grasses moving gently in the breeze.

There's a kind of true brilliance to The Happening at these moments. It's as if Shyamalan, a smart guy if nothing else, is trying to show us that at the heart of every monster movie there really lurks nothing at all. Just an empty field that you can fill with whatever terrifies you most.

And yet a meditation on cinematic form and the construction of horror movies isn't exactly what The Happening wants to leave us with. Instead, we are forced to watch in where's-our-twist-ending boredom as the "happening" ends abruptly — at the exact moment when Alma realizes she really does want to be a proper wife to Elliot, and to be a mother to the now-orphaned Jess. As some TV talking heads explain later, "events like this can just end suddenly." And we're left with an image of Elliot, Alma and Jess embracing in a de-monstered field of plants, in the middle of an Eastern seaboard which has almost completely suicided itself.

I guess that's why three months later, in an even more nauseating coda, Jess is happily skipping off to school. Private schools in NYC are easy to get into at last, since all the kids are dead. Luckily, however, Alma is ready to help repopulate: She dances out the door to meet Elliot coming home from work, bubbling over with the good news that she's pregnant. Praise Jesus! At last, Alma is doing what "nature" and "evolution" want her to do.

Night claims Airbender and Star Wars will be similar based on the religion they create. I could see why he would want that to be true, but just because you make three of something that has an ancient code and a deep fictional history, that doesn't automatically make it the next Star Wars. Still Night shared a production update with an excited room and briefly talked about casting, filming plans and why he wanted to make this movie.

The Last Airbender will tell the first book of the three-part Avatar series. It will follow Aang the reluctant hero, who is an Avatar and a protector of the world. He's the people's only hope to restore balance between it's four nations of Earth, Wind, Fire and Water. It all started when the Fire nation attacked, and Aang has to use his martial arts, and his abilities to bend nature's elements, to fight.

The very rough Airbender teaser trailer took old movie footage of martial arts fighting and then spelled out, "The nations lived together in peace until Fire Nation Attacked." Pan out to a shot of the Avatar planet with a blue arrow imposed over the top, referencing Aang, the savior of a world. The teaser also showed lovely sweeping landscape illustrations of each nation on the planet that looked pretty similar to the cartoon's representation — but alas, no illustrations of Aang, Azula or Katara.

All of the concept art for the movie is done, and every single frame has already been story-boarded. Like the cartoon, there will be multiple martial-arts fighting scenes, almost 20 of them, but they will be done his way. That means the fighting will extend the story and enhance the character, and Shyamalan has applied the same rule to his CGI use. The elements react to some of the characters emotions, so that among the mountain homes and alien characters will all have to be CGI. Sets are going to be built in August this year and some of the exotic locations picked for filming are Greenland and Vietnam. Casting has started and Shyamalan hints that he thinks he's found the next big star. So perhaps Aang will be played by a fresh face.

Shyamalan wants to create, as he called it, religion around this movie similar to the religion that inspired him from other films. "Star Wars had religion and I mean that," explained Night. "Something that connects us with these stories which is what they had in the Star Wars and the first Matrix. Those movies caused religions to happen." Methinks he's confusing religion with just heavily layered story-telling, yet in his defense there are many Jedi orders throughout the country. Do you think he wants more costumey fans running around Tai Chi bending the elements? It would be good marketing, I guess.

Shyamalan admits that Star Wars was a movie that made him want to make movies and he had been searching for a story like this. So it's cute that it was his youngest daughter that introduced him to the cartoon series. Shyamalan hopes that after watching this movie, "Every kid at every breakfast table should be trying to bend the milk out of their cup." Airbender is set to release over the 4th of July weekend in 2010.

The Happening director M. Night Shyamalan sat down with the press to talk about the science behind his latest flick — and the science is a weird mixture of Jesus and algae at the bottom of the sea. Night was inspired by reading Albert Einstein's biography and discovering Einstein had rejected religion at first, until eventually he saw "the hand of God" in the gaps between scientific explanations. In The Happening, Shyamalan tries to recreate this surrender to faith by saying, sometimes you just can't explain it when shit happens. Click through to discover the deeper religious message of The Happening — and to find out where that algae comes into it. (With spoilers.)

In The Happening, people start killing themselves for no reason, and according to early reports it turns out that the plants are secreting a neurotoxin that makes people crazily suicidal. Shyamalan said he got the idea from reading about undersea algae that can secrete a toxin to protect itself.

But asked what specific religious faith inspired The Happening, Shyamalan went super vague. He said he drew on "the Native American culture and relationship with nature, the relationship with the sky, the earth, the rock the bear." He also claimed that cast he Mark Wahlberg because of his strong faith in Jesus. But Wahlberg's religious faith ended up causing a ton of reshoots. Whenever Shyamalan would ask Wahlberg what he was thinking about, and Wahlberg replied, "Jesus," Shyamalan would make him reshoot the scene in question. (Until he was no longer thinking about Jesus?)

Added Shyamalan, "There are limits to rational thought." Which is actually the only sentence I feel clearly explained his faith message. But maybe I'm just an overly rational person waiting for God to be explained — or rather not explained — to me because, as Shyamalan says,

It's not cynical, but clinical minds are the ones that it needs to be proved to the most. The ability to believe is right there. It actually means more to them, it's such an important moment. We all want one day someone to go, "Here's the answer. There is something bigger going on."

Wow, so many terrifying images here. A tree full of hanging people, a man lying down in front of a lawnmower and another woman stabbing herself in the neck with a hair-pin. But the award for most dramatic and painful way to kill someone goes to the man who walks into a lion's cage. The guy is still standing, yikes. I'm most concerned with John Leguizamo sitting on the concrete all bloody. This frightens me because he's the father of a little kid in the movie. I hope there's a kitchen towel nearby so they can wrap up whatever is wrong and it'll be magically healed. Kitchen towels cure everything in the movies.

We're still on the fence about this flick, but it looks marginally like Signs 2. Only this time the aliens are the plants that we've been sharing the planet with all these years. Looks like they finally got pissed off about all the pollution and the vegetarians. Watching this reminds us that Shyamalan's Unbreakable was a great movie that got slammed for being too slow and unexciting, but in retrospect is well worth a second (and third) viewing. However, Signs never stops us from asking why aliens would come to a world coated in something that is severely lethal to them. We hope The Happening doesn't have similar plotholes in it.

Apparently the Earth's plants begin rebelling against mankind, and start releasing neurotoxins that cause everyone to go wacky and turn into lemmings. So all of that animal love and peace and harmony that vegetarians have been preaching to us for years will come back to bite them on the ass. Marky Mark takes his family on the run, runs into Zooey Deschanel while avoiding suicidal drivers, and there's undoubtedly some big twist at the end, like plants are sentient and have been screaming at us to stop eating salad for years. We just haven't heard them.