M. Night Fans

In just about a week or two  Shyamalan will roll the cameras to shoot After Earth. For the past few months he’s been occupied with the casting of the film, location scoutings, and recently finished rehearsal sessions with Will Smith and Jaden Smith. Previously via Twitter Shyamalan stated that the tone and atmoshphere of After Earth’s story will be close to Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi epic Alien.

And again just recently via Twitter Shyamalan shared a very interesting picture, which you can see below. It’s slightly giving us the idea behind the art of the film’s title design if you look at M.Night Shyamalan’s name.

It seems like Mr. Shyamalan is building his team very carefully.  Starting with the casting of  Will Smith and his son Jaden Smith for his project, After Earth first, and then casting Sophie Okonedo, Zoe Kravitz, and Isabelle Furhman. After Earth script was originally written by Gary Whitta ( Book of Eli), and then Shyamalan himself did some of the writing. After that screenwriter Stephen Ghagan (Traffic) and Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) also did some polishing on the script respectively.

Now via twitter, Shyamalan just disclosed to the world that costumer designer Amy Westcott is going to be working with him on After Earth. Amy’s credit includes films like Black Swan, The Wrestler.

M. Night Shyamalan’s next film, After Earth, is quickly coming up on the start of filming. As you may have read in the news article below, Night has been posting pictures of the pre-production via his Twitter account. And for all of this time, we haven’t yet heard who will be shooting the picture. Well just recently Night tweeted that Peter Suschitzky (The Empire Strikes Back, Eastern Promises) will be the director of photography on After Earth.

Suschitzky has been in the business for nearly half a century, and began to make a name for himself working on films like The Rocky Picture Horror Show, The Empire Strikes Back, and Krull. Lately, the BAFTA nominated cinematographer has been working closely with David Cronenberg, having shot the majority of the director’s films, including Eastern Promises and A History of Violence.

Obviously with After Earth being a sci-fi film, his photography for The Empire Strikes Back is a major plus, and Suschitzky’s work with Cronenberg has been top notch.  What do you all think about Night working with a new DP? His past collaborations have been really successful.

M. Night Shyamalan is getting closer to the start of filming for After Earth.  In fact, rehearsals for the film started just this week.  He’s recently been very active on Twitter, and posted two photos on his official WhoSay site.  Take a look!  We’re getting very excited for filming to begin and cannot wait to see what Shyamalan has in store for us.

If you have seen Orphan (2009) you know who Isabelle Furhman is. The talented actress at age 12 got the attention of all the critics because of her outstanding performance as a deranged woman in Jaume Collet-Serra’s mystery/thriller. Now, the folks from THR are reporting that the actress is in negotiations to join Will Smith and Jaden Smith in M.Night Shyamalan’s sci-fi action adventure, After Earth. The story is set in a future in which humans no longer live on Earth after it becomes inhospitable.

Isabelle will also be seen in the much anticipated action/drama, The Hunger Games besides Jennifer Lawrence this March. In After Earth, she will be joining Sophie Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz  as well. Fuhrman will play Jaden Smith character’s friend Rayna.

Variety’s Jeff Sneider recently sent out a tweet claiming that Academy Award winner Mark Boal did a polish on the script for After Earth. Boal, who won Oscars for both writing and producing 2008′s The Hurt Locker, joins fellow Oscar winner Stephen Gaghan, as well as Gary Whitta as one of the writers to work the upcoming sci-fi film. Shyamalan, an Academy Award nominated writer himself, also did drafts of his own on the screenplay. To me, this signals that Sony and Night are really serious about making this picture the best it can be, or that there were a fair share of issues with previous drafts. Here’s to hoping for the former.

After Earth will star Will and Jaden Smith as a father and son who crash-land on Earth 1,000 years after mankind has deserted the planet. It goes in to production later this month.

We all know that Mr. Shyamalan likes to keep all the details of his new films in secret, but him joining the Twitter kind of brought us all close to him. He’s been sharing with fans some interesting things such as fun facts; favorite films; artists; painters; and even pre-production updates regarding his new film, After Earth starring Will Smith and son, Jaden Smith in the lead. We at Mnightfans.com are going to stay on top of all the production process. I believe everything is pretty much set and identified in their pre-production process,  for M.Night via twitter on January 3rd stated that cameras will commence rolling in 20 days.

Yesterday, he shared a picture of his production designer, Tom Sanders on location in Northern California  and him stating that Tom is standing in a redwood tree that has fallen and split. Exact location was not specified, but I think some of the shooting will take place in one of the forests here in Redwood City, Santa Cruz mountains or South of San Jose, because the famous tall redwood trees are in these mentioned locations of N. California and driving to work daily some of the trees are visible to me. Anyway, all the updates will be posted once we obtain them. After Earth releases on June 7, 2013.

It was a little while back right after the release of Devil, which was the first chapter in Mr. Shyamalan’s new production banner, The Night Chronicles that his take on the second chapter for the new banner was Reincarnate. According to The Night Chronicles’ official website the plot of the film goes something like this, “While deciding the fate of an accused murderer… the jury is haunted by supernatural forces that hold the key to the case.”

At that time it was announced that (Buried) scribe, Chris Sparling was penning a script for the idea along with playwright/screenwriter, Paul Grellong (The idea behind the projects for The Night Chronicles is that Mr. Shyamalan will be writing the idea and will have another writer or group of writers along with new directors to helm these films). And, film-maker Daniel Stamm (The Last Exorcism) was assigned to helm the project. But, throughout the year 2011 we didn’t hear anything regarding the project, for again according to TNC’s official site the production was supposed to commence during Fall 2011. Now the good news is that project is still alive and that is because Mr. Shyamalan recently on twitter  stated to a fan that “he is about to set up the second film called ‘Reincarnate.”

I enjoyed watching “Devil” and I am personally very intrigued with the idea of a production banner like The Night Chronicles, for we will still get to see films coming from the mind of Mr. Shyamalan and others helping him bringing the ideas live on the screen. Nothing else is yet announced and I am not sure if director Daniel Stamm is still attached to direct, I am still awaiting a response from ‘Media Rights Capital’ and Mr. Shyamalan himself. Whether Mr. Stamm is attached or not, we know what Mr. Shyamalan is doing and let’s hope we get to see Reincarnate sometime during 2012.

According to Hollywood Reporter, Zoe Kravitz (X-Men: First Class) and british actress, Sophie Okenedo (Hotel Rwanda) are in their early talks to join Will Smith and Jaden Smith in ‘After Earth,’ a project that scribes Gary Whitta (The Book of Eli), Stephen Gaghan (Traffic), and M.Night Shyamalan has spent time working on its script.  M.Night Shyamalan is going to helm the project for Columbia, a sci-fi action adventure, in which humans no longer resides on Earth. Will Smith is playing a hero, while Jaden is his son, considered a failure as a warrior. When the two crash-land on Earth and it is up to the son to save his father.

If both, Kravitz and Okenedo signs on the dotted lines, Okonedo would play Will Smith’s wife, while Kravitz will limn as his daughter. The shooting will commence in about few weeks. After Earth is set to release on June 2013.

Night’s next film After Earth goes into production early next year, with Jaden Smith and his father Will.  Shyamalan has tweeted:

I draw out every shot on my films. Just finished the second pass of them for After Earth. 676 shots! Four months of work.

9 weeks out from shooting After Earth. Looking at paintings/photos to find the tone of the film. Andrew Wyeth paintings always inspire me.

If you’d like to see his inspiration for the tone of the film, check out the paintings of Andrew Wyeth