“The value system just goes flip at the end”: M. Night Shyamalan’s Controversial Alternate Ending for ‘The Village’ Involved a Jay-Z Cameo But Not in the Way You Think
- M. Night Shyamalan reveals the alternate ending of The Village.
- The filmmaker explains how his daughter Saleka starred in Trap.
- Filmmaker teases his project after Trap.
Directed, written, and produced by M. Night Shyamalan, 2004’s period thriller The Village starred Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, Sigourney Weaver, and more. The movie follows the story of a village where people live in fear of creatures inhabiting the woods beyond it.
The movie, upon its release, received mixed reviews from critics as well as the audience, with a section of reviewers expressing their disappointment with the ending twist. The filmmaker who is known for his signature twist ending in the movie unfortunately couldn’t impress the audience with The Village. M. Night Shyamalan, however, revealed that the ending of the movie was reportedly changed.
Night Shyamalan reveals the alternate ending for 2004’s The Village
In an interview with ReelBlend, CinemaBlend’s flagship podcast, M. Night Shyamalan, who is known for movies with supernatural plots and twist endings, appeared to promote his recently released movie Trap. During the conversation, the filmmaker revealed that he had shot a different ending for The Village.
Night Shyamalan added that he had thought of putting it on the Blu-ray but then decided not to. He explained that because it was so different and would change one’s memory of the movie that they had watched because it was so alternate. The filmmaker narrated the ending.
So basically, Ivy came out and everyone found out about it, and it kind of blows up, essentially; I was thinking about putting in ’99 Problems’…She comes in, and the car almost hits her, but the guy driving it (which was me, by the way) was listening to Jay-Z’s 99 Problems. That was the ending of the movie.
Shyamalan further explained
So basically, the value system just goes flip at the end. It was so polarizing because people got offended. After all, you’re hearing cursing. It’s like immediately you went from ‘Little House on the Prairie’ to boom, ‘Jay-Z’.
Talking about the twists in the movie, there were 2. In the first twist, Edward can’t bring himself to leave Lucius for dead and finally decides to tell Ivy the truth. The truth is that the creatures are elders wearing costumes. The mythos surrounding them were carefully orchestrated to keep the village’s residents from leaving. (via Looper)
When Ivy finally manages to reach the woods’ outer limits, she climbs the wall, and it is revealed that the movie is set in the 2000s, not the late 19th century. It starts to unfold for the audience that Edward’s wealthy father endeavored to create a pure community insulated from violence and greed. The elders of the village, finding a viable spot in the world, turned the forest into a walled-off wildlife reserve and built a 19th-century-inspired village from scratch.
Towards the end, Ivy, who makes her way out of The Village to only return with medicines, reunites with Lucius. The elders who feared that Ivy’s expedition might jeopardize their entire enterprise do not materialize, and the movie ends on a hopeful yet ambivalent note.
Night Shyamalan teases his next movie after Trap
Academy Award nominee M. Night Shyamalan, in his recent interview with Collider, teases his upcoming project after his recent horror thriller movie Trap starring Josh Hartnett. The actor is not only the protagonist of the movie but also the antagonist, which is very interesting for the audience to watch.
The filmmaker’s daughter Saleka, stars as the pop star in the movie, and during the interview he was asked what it is like to work with family. He said while clarifying to the interviewer that it wasn’t like he cast his daughter as the pop star, but they came up with the movie together.
He explained that while talking about the movie, they kept thinking about how they can make a movie with music that is diegetic, where there is an entire album that the characters are listening to and that is critical to the plot. He noted that it was a very interesting process because they were thinking about Purple Rain when they were doing this.
M. Night Shyamalan added that he asked his daughter if she could write 14 songs for the movie, and not only did she write but performed as well. He mentioned that it was a wonderful experience to take a musician’s world and a filmmaker’s world and make a hybrid art form. Upon asking about his next project, the filmmaker shared,
I’m still learning about it. It has a cool kind of flip on a genre, so I’m very excited about that. I haven’t done this particular subject matter, and I’ve always been interested in it. But it’s an odd way to come into it again. I’m interested now, like with Trap, kind of going at subject matters, like serial killers, but doing it from an angle that you haven’t seen before.
The interviewer asked if he was working on a romantic movie, to which he laughed but did not reveal much.
Trap is playing in cinemas.
