M. Night Shyamalan is a Hollywood phenomenon who steers clear of the city and its heavy mix of entertainment and corporate politicking. He both wrote and directed The Sixth Sense, a 1999 thriller starring Bruce Willis as a doctor treating a little boy with troubling psychic abilities. With that picture and his next work, Unbreakable, Shyamalan brought in over $1 billion in box-office receipts for producer Disney Studios; in turn the studio granted him the creative license to continue shooting his own scripts free from executive interference. He signed a reported eight-figure deal with Disney to make his fifth film, which, like the others, would also be set and shot near his hometown of Philadelphia. "I started out trying to do more personal films," Shyamalan told a writer for Newsweek. "But I wasn't fitting in doing that. My instincts are: How do I make the most intelligent commercial movie for...