In some cases, not even being great is enough for a film to succeed at the box office like the recent MI release, which got overshadowed by the Barbenheimer hype train despite being as good as its predecessors. A similar thing happened with Kevin Bacon’s Stir of Echoes, which marked its debut alongside Bruce Willis’ The Sixth Sense, the film that pushed M. Night Shyamalan to prominence.
Although Stir of Echoes remains one of the best thrillers in the X-Men Star’s career, however, the actor knew that going up against Bruce Willis’ The Sixth Sense was a losing battle from the get-go.
Kevin Bacon’s Stir of Echoes stood no chance against Bruce Willis’ The Sixth Sense
Bacon told the SAG-ATRA Foundation:
“We were really proud of that movie. We were aware of The Sixth Sense, and really begged the distributor to put [ours] out before The Sixth Sense because there was a real buzz around [that].”
However, the studios weren’t keen on shiting the film’s release, which resulted in Stir of Echoes losing into obscurity while The Sixth Sense made around $672M against a budget of $40M.
Knowing The Sixth Sense‘s ending made the job harder for Bruce Willis
While Bruce Willis enjoyed a healthy paycheck from his work on The Sixth Sense, the ending crafted by M. Night Shyamalan left the actor pretty perplexed just like the rest of us. Willis further expressed that knowing the ending made it harder for him to pull off his character. Speaking on The Sixth Sense documentary, the actor said,
“Once I knew the ending of the film and that my character was indeed dead, I had to forget about it and act as if I weren’t. I never really thought about acting as a ghost.”
Although The Sixth Sense deserved everything it got following its brilliance, it’s a shame Bacon’s Stir of Echoes failed to make big, making only $21M from a budget of $12M.
Stir of Echoes is available to rent on Apple TV.
Source: SAG-ATRA Foundation
