20 Already

I can't believe that The Sixth Sense was released 20 years ago.  I remember being impressed at the time how people generally kept from revealing the biggest of spoilers about that movie.

“The Sixth Sense” was almost a serial killer film inspired by “The Silence of the Lambs.” In the original draft of the thriller by director and writer M. Night Shyamalan, Bruce Willis’ character was a crime photographer (instead of a therapist) with a son who experienced visions of the victims. Ten drafts later, Shyamalan morphed the script into what we know today: a psychological drama with a monumental twist ending that would launch the career of a young director with comparisons to Spielberg and Hitchcock.

“The Sixth Sense” opened on Aug. 6, 1999 as an under-the-radar summer release with little fanfare and low expectations. But within only two weeks, the film made back its production budget of $40 million and received largely positive reviews. It ultimately earned a staggering $672 million worldwide, and it became the second-highest grossing movie of 1999 at the domestic box office, beating out blockbuster tentpoles such as “Toy Story 2,” “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and “The Matrix.” It was only behind “Stars Wars: Episode 1 — the Phantom Menace.”