jrs
07-17-04, 04:00 PM
According to the Associated Press, the Sci Fi Channel admitted Friday that it lied last month in claiming it was at odds with filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan and was making an unauthorized biography about his "buried secret." The hoax was part of a "guerilla marketing campaign" that went too far, network president Bonnie Hammer said.
The network announced in December that the reclusive Shyamalan, maker of The Sixth Sense and Signs, had agreed to participate in a documentary about his life to run in connection with this summer's release of his new movie, The Village.
Sci Fi said last month, however, that Shyamalan had soured on the documentary when the questions got too personal. Documentarians Nathaniel Kahn and Callum Greene pressed on and made a three-hour film, "The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan," without his cooperation, the network said.
In an interview, Greene described how Shyamalan's "cooperation dried up." A network spokesman told the AP that Sci Fi was confident it had legal grounds to air the film and would probably never work with Shyamalan again. In a news release, Sci Fi said Shyamalan had attempted to shut down production of the "disturbing expose."
It was all a lie, and there is no buried secret, Hammer said Friday. "We created a fictional special that was part-fact and part-fiction, and Night was part of the creation from the beginning," the network chief said.
Thanks to comingsoon.net (http://www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=5592).
The network announced in December that the reclusive Shyamalan, maker of The Sixth Sense and Signs, had agreed to participate in a documentary about his life to run in connection with this summer's release of his new movie, The Village.
Sci Fi said last month, however, that Shyamalan had soured on the documentary when the questions got too personal. Documentarians Nathaniel Kahn and Callum Greene pressed on and made a three-hour film, "The Buried Secret of M. Night Shyamalan," without his cooperation, the network said.
In an interview, Greene described how Shyamalan's "cooperation dried up." A network spokesman told the AP that Sci Fi was confident it had legal grounds to air the film and would probably never work with Shyamalan again. In a news release, Sci Fi said Shyamalan had attempted to shut down production of the "disturbing expose."
It was all a lie, and there is no buried secret, Hammer said Friday. "We created a fictional special that was part-fact and part-fiction, and Night was part of the creation from the beginning," the network chief said.
Thanks to comingsoon.net (http://www.comingsoon.net/news.php?id=5592).