Director M. Night Shyamalan Kept the Sequel Rights to All His Films Just in Case
There are spoilers from the film Split, so proceed with caution:
There's been a lot of news regarding M. Night Shyamalan recently because of his hit film Split, which awesomely set up a sequel to his grounded superhero film Unbreakable. During an interview with Cinemablend, the director revealed that he maintains control of the rights to all of his movies. That's right, all of his movies could technically have sequels, and if it happens, Shyamalan is the only one that has the power to pull the trigger. He explained:
Luckily I took care of all the right stuff. I had it all arranged, and everyone was fantastic about it, and everything like that. So it worked out great on that front. I kind of own the sequel rights to all my movies; not own, but nobody can make a sequel to my movies without permission. I gave up whatever I needed to give up to make sure I had those over time, because I figured 20 something years from now, I’m going to be pretty upset if [someone made a sequel without my involvement].
That was definitely a smart move on his part. I don't really care for the majority of Shyamalan's films, but the thought of a sequel to The Sixth Sense is interesting. I seriously doubt it will ever happen, though. That film is perfect as a standalone movie.
The only movie with true franchise potential is Unbreakable, and I'm excited to see where he takes it now that he's set up the villain who has multiple personalities and can transform himself into a beast. It's going to be really cool to see Bruce Willis' David Dunn take on that dude. Samuel L. Jackson's Mr. Glass will be a part of that story as well!
It's funny, when I saw Split in the theater, when Willis showed up at the end over half the people in the theater didn't get understand why he was there because they had never seen Unbreakable... sad. It seems like I was the only one who was like, "HELL YEAH!!!"