The story behind Splash 2 Lady in the Water is that it started as a fairy tale Shyamalan was telling to his daughters about what happened in their pool at night while the family was asleep, which is really relatable. When I was little, my mom told me made up stories all the time about who flew our solid gold helicopter when we were busy on our private island, and who was responsible for leaving the thousand dollar bills under my pillow every night. So I understand the desire of a parent to entertain his children. And in doing so it’s easy to make up stupid little names and mysteries for the story, because they’re children, and you just want them to pass out so you can go to bed and not have sex with your wife. But when you decide to translate that magic to the big screen, PUNCH IT THE FUCK UP. There is no rougher draft then the one you write off the top of your head in your children’s bedroom, but M. Night Shyamalan was like “Perfect. There’s no improving upon this. Even Will Smith couldn’t write a movie this good.” Which is a fair point, insofar as it’s so bad that the only revisions he could have made to improve it would have been the revisions of setting it on fire and walking away.

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