Netflix is getting ready to put together a second season of Stranger Things, its 1980s-based sci-fi smash hit from 2016, and M Night Shyamalan wants to get in the director’s chair for an episode if he can.
Of course, Shyamalan has an in with the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, so he just might have a chance to do so.
“My boys who do Stranger Things, they did Wayward Pines for me,” Shyamalan said in an interview with Digital Spy. “They were round my house and I was like, ‘Well, you can hire me back guys!'”
Shyamalan is the executive director of Wayward Pines, which has been on the air for two seasons. He also directed one episode. The Duffers were credited with writing on four episodes of the show in 2015. Having the Duffers return the favor to Shyamalan may or may not happen, but it is an interesting possibility for the hit Netflix show. If there needs to be a good twist, you know Shyamalan will want to get the opportunity to reveal it, although writing and directing are two different roles.
Given Shyamalan’s track record, which has itself yielded mixed reviews at times, the feedback is apparently a tad polarizing. There are those who applaud it…
https://twitter.com/realjoshroberts/status/821577169990193152
And those who give it a thumbs down…
No RT @ComicBook: Could @MNightShyamalan be heading to @Stranger_Things ? He'd like to.https://t.co/xe8kWSjvsW pic.twitter.com/dm22Z88EwD
— Food Pimp (@MsRoyaly) January 18, 2017
Just saw several posts saying M Night Shyamalan either wants to or IS going to kill @Stranger_Things I hope that it's just a joke. 1/2
— Matthew Drummey (@MattJDrumm) January 17, 2017
https://twitter.com/F1ZZY_L0G1C/status/821360917535395840
We’ll have to wait to see if Shyamalan does get to direct an episode, and then we can take a closer look at whether or not this has a huge impact on the show. If he gets one episode, it probably does not do much to the show overall. If he gets two or three episodes, then that may be a different story as he would be tasked with telling the story for a good fraction of the Netflix show.
Keep in mind that season one included just eight episodes, and season two is slated to have nine episodes. Two or three episodes gives a director roughly a quarter to one-third of the season to be responsible for. That can be enough to make or break a show.
Shyamalan already claims to have a lot of projects on his plate, including some TV work. One of those projects is a reboot of Tales From the Crypt, although it is still a work in progress to make that a reality. But, if he is looking for some work while sorting through a number of issues to get that project off the ground, he should keep bugging the Duffers to give him the director’s chair for an episode of Stranger Things.
