M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense is regarded as one of the greatest horror movies of all time. The movie not only garnered enormous critical and box-office success but also made Bruce Willis one of the richest actors in Hollywood with an enormous payday.
Shyamalan’s brilliant screenplay and immaculate direction provided one of the best horror experiences of all time. But it seems that the movie would’ve never seen the light of day if M. Night Shyamalan wasn’t determined to escape from the paws of Harvey Weinstein, now known as a convicted s*x offender.
Shyamalan made The Sixth Sense to escape from Miramax
The Unbreakable director shared that his career has suffered from many low points and one of that instances was his contract with Miramax, the company which was owned by Harvey Weinstein. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Shyamalan called Weinstein the biggest monster of Hollywood. Shyamalan recalled how he wasn’t allowed to leave, as his directing rights were owned by Miramax.
But the Unbreakable director was determined to leave Miramax, and eventually found a loophole in their contract and decided to write the greatest screenplay ever. This led to the director writing the screenplay for The Sixth Sense, which was purchased by Disney, and Shyamalan was finally out of the helms of the Hollywood monster and went on to direct one of the best horror movies.
M. Night Shyamalan’s resoluteness fabricated one of the greatest horror films of all time, which went on to become a box office giant. Apart from being a box-office success, it also provided Bruce Willis with a whopping $114 million under his belt.
Shyamalan’s determination to leave Miramax made Bruce Willis millions
Although Bruce Willis is among some of the richest actors in Hollywood with a colossal net worth of $250 million, a majority of it arrived from his inclusion in the 1999 classic The Sixth Sense. Even though the actor went on to earn a great portion of his total earnings from the horror classic, initially the actor wasn’t interested to star in the movie.
In the beginning, Bruce Willis wasn’t interested to play the role of Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth sense but had to star in the project due to contractual obligations with Disney. After negotiations, the actor agreed to star in the movie for a salary of $14 million along with 17% of the movie’s total global box office gross.
Even though experts doubt the movie’s chances to break even, the movie defied all odds and became one of the biggest box-office successes of 1999, grossing a total of $672 million. And Bruce Willis went on to earn $100 million from the movie’s profit along with the initial $14 million.
The Sixth Sense is available to stream on Disney+.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
