M. Night Shyamalan’s career comes full circle with Apple’s ‘Servant’

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In a surprise resembling one from his own twist-filled movie universe, M. Night Shyamalan managed to do the unthinkable in Hollywood and rejuvenate a career that many had long written off.

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After his 1999 breakthrough The Sixth Sense , Shyamalan, 51, directed an impressive streak of hit thrillers, including Unbreakable , Signs and The Village .

Newsweek labelled him “the Next Spielberg” and studios jockeyed to work with the up-and-coming writer-director.

But by the mid-aughts, his filmmaking career hit a series of speed bumps that began with 2006’s Lady in the Water and continued up until 2013’s misfire After Earth .

An opinion piece that appeared on the website of the British Film Institute recalled how he’d become “a marked man … under constant attack.”

If you type his name into YouTube one of the first videos that pops up asks, ‘WTF happened to M. Night Shyamalan?’

But despite the sheen wearing off, Shyamalan doubled down on himself.

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“It became clear that the things that I am good at and the things that are important to me are not necessarily nurtured in the system at large,” Shyamalan says animatedly in a video call from Philadelphia.

In 2015, he went back to his roots, self-financing an indie horror, The Visit . Riding high on that film’s box office success, Shyamalan then bankrolled 2017’s Split — a sequel to 2000’s Unbreakable that starred James McAvoy — that cost him $9 million and made over $278 million worldwide.

“I said, ‘What’s the way that I can be the best version of myself to incorporate myself into the system?’ And that was betting on myself,” he says. “So that meant doing things that haven’t been done in a tone that hasn’t been done.”

In 2019, Shyamalan completed his Unbreakable trilogy with Glass and signed on to executive produce Servant , a psychological thriller from Apple.

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The show, which returns for its 10-episode third season today on Apple TV+, centres on a grief-stricken Philadelphia couple (Lauren Ambrose, Toby Kebbell) who mistakenly allow a mysterious force into their home when they hire a new nanny (Nell Tiger Free) who has ties to a dangerous cult.

One of the first shows used to launch the nascent streaming service in late 2019, Servant , which was created and written by British TV vet Tony Basgallop ( What Remains ), quickly gained a following thanks to its slow-burn supernatural storyline.

Shyamalan helms some of the series’ episodes, but the show, which also features Harry Potter star Rupert Grint in a key supporting role, utilizes a variety of directors, including Julia Ducournau ( Raw ), Isabella Eklof ( Holiday ), Nimrod Antal ( Predators ) and Shyamalan’s daughter Ishana.

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“There’s a whole part of this I didn’t know how much I would love, which is working with other filmmakers and curating and searching and finding great storytellers from around the world,” Shyamalan says. “Making movies is kind of a lonely thing. I write and direct them in Philly. But now I have a whole kind of film school with these other writers and directors. That’s been a wonderful part.”

With Servant recently getting greenlit for a fourth and final season, Shyamalan teases the spooky storyline will lean more heavily into a fantastical element prior episodes have only hinted at.

“The end of Season 2 insinuated there’s a mythology that’s going to unfold, and that’s exactly what happens in Season 3,” Shyamalan says. “It’s almost like this battening down the hatches of the house because something is trying to get in.”

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With his most recent film, Old , hauling in more than $90 million worldwide and landing Shyamalan his sixth No. 1 movie, the director will start work on his next top secret pic, Knock at the Cabin , this spring with Dave Bautista.

But he’ll continue to shoulder the risk, no longer trying to be a square peg fitting in Hollywood’s round hole.

“I get that the system will be very wary of that, but let me go make those things and I will take the risk,” he says. “I’ve followed that format with my movies, and now with Servant as well.

“Hopefully the audiences are the beneficiary of this and they get to hear stories told in very specific ways.”

Servant Season 3 premieres this Friday on Apple TV+ , with new episodes debuting weekly.

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