M. Night Shyamalan hit the jackpot with his 1999 movie The Sixth Sense, which established him as a brand in suspense-thriller movies. While pitching the story to different studios, Shyamalan wanted them to fulfill a few of his conditions. The director knew that he was making a risky gamble since he was only known in the industry for writing a few spec scripts at the time. However, his gamble paid off as studios were fighting each other to bid for his film.
Shyamalan’s story revolved around Haley Joel Osment’s Cole who claims to see dead people in the movie. He has the caring psychologist Malcolm Crowe, played by Bruce Willis, guiding him through his newfound abilities. However, Crowe doesn’t realize that he’s helping himself by helping the kid.
M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense Pitch Was A Risky Gamble
M. Night Shyamalan recalled in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that he had put his potential film career at risk for the 1999 film, The Sixth Sense. Shyamalan left Philadelphia with his wife and baby to pitch the story to studios in Los Angeles. He knew that there was no going back, and if the film failed to take off, he’d be doomed in his career.
Shyamalan wrote some impressive screenplays for comedy and romantic movies at the time, which were yet to see the theaters. He was trying his hands at an entirely new genre, but the Village director decided to risk it further when he laid out a few stipulations to his agents.
Before these agents approached the studios with The Sixth Sense script, Shyamalan told them that the project would move forward only if he was attached as the director and if the minimum bid amount was going to be $1 million. Shyamalan told his agents (via THR):
“I have to be attached as director, and we’re going to have a $1 million minimum bid. If they want to read it, they have to know that this is going to start at $1 million.”
Shyamalan explained that he had to determine the worth of his own script, which was written with no specific demands from studios. The Glass director shared that he was not going to compromise on his script’s worth and decided to shelve the project if no studio wanted to pay a million for it. Shyamalan shared with THR:
“[I told my agents], ‘It’s fine if no one wants to pay that money for it. If they don’t want to make it, I will shelve it.’ You have to not be bluffing when you say stuff like that. I wasn’t bluffing. I’ll do other things, but I won’t make the movie.”
The Signs director’s decision would’ve doomed the movie, if he had come up with a weak script. Fortunately, Shyamalan’s gamble was backed by an exceptional script that fooled the audiences in the theaters.
M. Night Shyamalan’s Pitch Got Great Responses From Studios
The studios were impressed with M. Night Shyamalan’s pitch for The Sixth Sense. Multiple studios entered the mix to bid for the film and Shyamalan met with a few of them. He recalled how Hollywood Pictures, the now-defunct label of Disney, sealed the deal for the film. He shared with THR:
“I went over to a studio, and then there was another call [from my reps] and they said, ‘Someone else just bid, you go drive over to another studio.’ I remember it ended with Disney hearing that another company was going to come in with a big offer. So they called immediately and said, ‘We want to close it. Right now.’”
The deal with the studio was worth $2.2-3 million. Other famous studios were also in the mix, including Columbia, DreamWorks, and New Line Cinema. The first order of business was the casting of Bruce Willis in the lead role of Malcolm Crowe.
According to Box Office Mojo, the film collected $672.8 million at the worldwide box office. It was the second highest grosser of 1999 after the billion-dollar Star Wars film The Phantom Menace. It also began a working relationship between Shyamalan and Willis that spawned three films in the Unbreakable film series.
The Sixth Sense is now available for streaming on FX Now.
