M. Night Shyamalan Lied About Writing ‘She’s All That,’ Says Screenwriter

In a twist worthy of one of his films, it turns out that M. Night Shyamalan may not have ghostwritten the 1999 teen comedy She’s All That after all.

The film’s credited screenwriter, R. Lee Fleming, responded to a fan on Twitter and said that Shymalan wrote the film “only in his mind.”

The tweet has since been deleted, but Fleming replaced it with a retweet of a Mark Twain quote: “A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

During press rounds for his latest film, the Will and Jaden Smith vehicle After Earth, Shymalan dropped  a bit of a bombshell on the interviewer.

“You’re saying the audience’s relationship started with me with The Sixth Sense. That same year I wrote Stuart Little, he said. “I ghost-wrote a movie that same year that would even add to the breadth of it all. I ghost-wrote the movie She’s All That.”

So who is telling the truth here, Shymalan or Fleming? After all, since ghostwriting means you won’t get credit, Shymalan has no way to prove that he actually worked on the movie, short of a contract or some other legal documentation.

So while the case of whether or not M. Night Shyamalan really did ghostwrite She’s All That remains a mystery for now, The Sixth Sense director recently put an end to another mystery: a sequel to what many consider to be his last good film, 2000’s Unbreakable. The film starred Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson as an unknowing superhero and a burgeoning supervillain.

Shyamalan said he would only do the sequel if it felt right to him.

“As long as it can be connected to something that I’m feeling right now, then it’ll work for me. It’ll be valid and I’ll enjoy it,” Shyamalan said. “If I feel like it’s a mechanical thing and I’ll be doing it because it’ll be profitable or successful, that will just be so hollow.”

He added, “My agenda is to make another one, I just have to figure out a plot that makes sense. I’m close, though. On my dressing table, I have a whole list of notes about it.”

Do you think M. Night Shyamalan lied about ghostwriting She’s All That? Why would he take credit for a film that came out a decade and a half ago?

[Photo credit: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com]