A new chapter has just been written in Hollywood about the never-ending tension between "the talent" and "the suits."
It can be found in a soon-to-be-published tell-all book that offers something very rare, indeed: a candid recounting, complete with tears and recriminations, of a messy divorce between a movie studio and one of the world's most famous writer-directors.
In "The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale," the 35-year-old filmmaker whose name has become synonymous with spooky suspense thrillers crucifies the top executives at the company he long had considered his artistic home since his 1999 surprise hit "The Sixth Sense": Walt Disney Studios.
Penned by Sports Illustrated writer Michael Bamberger with Shyamalan's blessing and extensive participation, the 278-page book hits stores July 20. That's one day before the theatrical premiere of Shyamalan's new movie, "Lady in the Water," which is at the center of the dispute that led him to part ways with Disney.
The $70-million movie, a scary fantasy that stars Paul Giamatti as an apartment building superintendent who rescues a sea nymph he finds in his swimming pool, was ultimately financed by Warner Bros.
But arguably as shocking as the movie itself is the way Shyamalan, in the book, disses his former studio. As galleys circulate around town, that more than anything else has people musing about just how fragile relationships between artists and executives can be.
Disney production President Nina Jacobson gets the worst drubbing.
Jacobson and Shyamalan enjoyed a close, albeit sometimes combative, relationship. Over six years, she shepherded his four Disney films including "Unbreakable," "Signs" and "The Village." On what would have been their fifth collaboration, their bond so eroded that the two didn't speak for more than a year.
At a disastrous dinner in Philadelphia last year, Jacobson delivered a frank critique of the "Lady in the Water" script. When she told him that she and her boss, studio Chairman Dick Cook, didn't "get" the idea, Shyamalan was heartbroken. Things got only worse when she lambasted his inclusion of a mauling of a film critic in the story line and told Shyamalan his decision to cast himself as a visionary writer out to change the world bordered on self-serving.
