Addressing Directors Who Could Care Less

Pointless question directed to M. Night Shyamalan:

Why call the new movie Devil? I realize you didn't direct Devil, but you came up with the story and produced the film, and the trailers have your name and credentials all over them, so why not use some of that sway to change the title to something people would really be interested in?

Something like, oh say, Devilvator? Or Evilvator? (strangely, neither title is in use at IMDB)

You see, Mr. Shyamalan (who will never read this but let's stick with the premise he is), I watched The Happening, which you abruptly shifted in description from "Thriller" to "B Movie" when people started laughing at how awful it was. I saw the movie twice in theatres, bought the Blu Ray, and then showed it to people again. Yes, it's a terrible, terrible movie, but it was a lot of fun. Devil, aside from being about the Devil (one assumes) looks like it's also designed to be some kind of "B" horror movie, but unless you've seen the trailer, no one really knows what it is. Even if you have seen the trailer, all you know is that it looks like "one of the passengers on this elevator is the Devil," and I can't say the title has me very interested. The pun-based opportunity, however, would push Devil over into a "must-see" category.

I realize that they may seem stupid - or awesome - but a really off the wall title like that sets you apart and gives the audience incentive to go see the movie. Which, from the people I've talked to, Devil does not. Eventually, somebody will capitalize on the Devilvator / Evilvator title and make a really bad / great horror movie about an elevator to hell or a "devil on the elevator" or just human-eating elevator, and I don't know that Devil is going to be anybody's first choice when they're side by side at the video store.

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Ah, James Cameron... I try very hard not to go back to the well of "things I don't like about James Cameron" in the Blogorium, because the Cap'n is clearly in the minority when it comes to the director of Aliens, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Titanic, and Avatar. So I keep my opinions to myself, until something like this pops up:

Vanity Fair: Was there any sense of nostalgia when the Piranha movie came out last weekend?

Cameron: "Zero. You’ve got to remember: I worked on Piranha 2 for a few days and got fired off of it; I don’t put it on my official filmography," he explained. "So there’s no sort of fond connection for me whatsoever. In fact, I would go even farther and say that... I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but that is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3-D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3-D horror films from the 70s and 80s, like Friday the 13th 3-D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity and at the last gasp of their financial lifespan, they did a 3-D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip. And that’s not what’s happening now with 3-D. It is a renaissance—right now the biggest and the best films are being made in 3-D. Martin Scorsese is making a film in 3-D. Disney’s biggest film of the year—Tron: Legacy—is coming out in 3-D. So it’s a whole new ballgame."

I could stick up for Piranha 3-D, but since the studio was so impressed with the positive critical reaction that they've greenlit a sequel (and to be perfectly clear, Scott Pilgrim fans, Piranha 3-D didn't exactly light up the Box Office either), so no, the movie doesn't exactly remind me of Friday the 13th Part 3* or Jaws 3 or T2 3-D: A Battle Across Time. It reminds me that since 3-D movies have been making money - whether it be A Christmas Carol, Spy Kids 3, Clash of the Titans, Beowulf, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Hannah Montana Live, The Final Destination, Alice in Wonderland, Up, Monsters vs. Aliens, or Avatar - that every studio wants to slap 3-D on to their movie in order to cash in. Call it whatever you want, the major studios still see it as a gimmick that gets audiences into theatres. When it stops making money, they'll stop making them.

And oh yeah, not to undermine your point about the 3-D "renaissance," but it was a really bad idea to use "Disney's biggest film of the year," Tron Legacy, as the final example. Considering that Disney is hoping that the 3-D will be the icing on a cake to their sequel to a 28 year-old movie that didn't do very well when it came out. I was going to see Tron Legacy whether it was in 2-D or 3-D, and while I know several people who also are, it's not an overwhelming amount of folks. Despite my excitement for a new Tron movie, Cameron is actually undermining his own point about sequels reaching for 3-D to get "blood from a turnip," a desperate act.

This will be my final point, I swear, but which side of the coin do House of Wax and Creature from the Black Lagoon fall on? Renaissance or Last Gasp?




* Wait... how many Friday the 13th movies were there? The third film was the end of its financial lifespan???