M. Night Shyamalan's Trap: There's No Twist In These Box Office Numbers

There aren't many directors who are as well known or as divisive as M. Night Shyamalan. The director has been hard at work for over three decades bringing us everything from epic sci-fi movies to grounded psychological thrillers. While even his biggest fans can't pretend that all of his movies have been spectacular, his harshest critics also have to admit that there have been a number of definite winners.

"Trap" is Shyamalan's attempt at a cat-and-mouse story centered around a serial killer. The big Shyamalan twist in "Trap" is actually that we all know the twist from the beginning. Cooper (Josh Hartnett) is taking his daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to a pop concert, but the concert is secretly a police sting: Cooper is the person they're looking for, a horrifying serial killer known as The Butcher. The cops are closing in on Cooper, and he needs to use his wits to escape the arena without being captured or revealing his true identity to his daughter.

As far as Shyamalan openings go, "Trap" actually performed about as well as industry analysts expected. The movie earned just over $15 million domestically, and its global box office take was roughly $20 million. It remains to be seen whether the movie can break even based on its budget, or if Shyamalan has a real flop on his hands. "Trap" is an unsurprising opening from one of cinema's most surprising directors, and that's a mystery in and of itself that we're here to explain.

With a late summer release date, "Trap" had the potential to be a solid thriller for audiences that didn't want to watch animated fare or effects-driven franchise entries. But it didn't end up truly dominating the box office in its opening weekend. Part of the reason "Trap" had such a "meh" performance was that the first weekend of August 2024 still featured strong performances from earlier tentpole releases. The season's been packed with big titles like "Deadpool and Wolverine" and "Twisters," and "Trap" just couldn't compete.

M. Night Shyamalan's latest feature came in third place in terms of the domestic box office, and the competition wasn't particularly close. "Twisters" came in second, earning about 50% more than "Trap" with a $22 million weekend. To no one's surprise, "Deadpool and Wolverine" ran away with the box office. In its second week, the Marvel Cinematic Universe film raked in $97 million. Audiences looking for a blockbuster experience opted for Marvel's reliability and a nostalgic IP reboot rather than Shyamalan's latest outing.

M. Night Shyamalan is a brand unto himself, and there's no doubt that his reputation influenced people's choice to see "Trap" or not. The biggest Shyamalan twist of all is that you can never accurately guess which of his movies are going to be winners. While he's best known for iconic films like "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs," Shyamalan has directed more than a few films that might have scared people away from his work altogether. "The Last Airbender," "The Happening," "Glass," and "After Earth" aren't exactly movies that leave you dying for more.

On the other hand, having Shyamalan's name attached might actually have saved "Trap." Some of his more recent films, like "Old" and "Knock at the Cabin," weren't smash hits by any means, but have been moderate box office successes. Without a big name like Shyamalan, it's entirely possible that fewer people would have taken a chance on a summer thriller with no franchise ties or big stars attached. Ultimately, the middling box office performance from "Trap" is right in line with the uneven reception of the rest of Shyamalan's filmography.

M. Night Shyamalan has been self-funding his movies since 2017's "The Visit," and his approach with "Trap" was no different. The director reportedly spent $30 million putting the movie together, and that might not seem like much money in an age where movie budgets frequently shoot into the hundreds of millions. Still, $30 million is nothing to sneeze at, and a budget that size means that an opening weekend hitting around $15 million really isn't that great — "Trap" has to clear around $65-70 million at the box office to break even.

By self-funding, Shyamalan guarantees that he has creative control over his projects, which is great because the enthusiasm he has for his stories really does come through in the final product. Movies need creators with a strong sense of direction and a ton of enthusiasm to succeed, but that's not all they need. Shyamalan's $30 million budget didn't have much effect on how many people saw "Trap" during its opening weekend, but it did set the bar for financial success higher than his other recent films. "Trap" didn't completely fall on its face, but it didn't quite clear that bar either.

People don't always appreciate the role that marketing plays in a movie's success. Filmmakers need to spread the word about their upcoming projects, and more than that, they need to convince people that their latest movie is worth shelling out time and money to see. Somewhere in the process, M. Night Shyamalan's latest feature managed to miss a step.

"Trap" did produce a couple of trailers, and they might actually be some of Shyamalan's best. The trailers cleverly convey the film's premise and make the entire ordeal seem like it will be an absolutely nail-biting experience. They might have worked better if enough people had seen them, but interestingly, "Trap" managed to sidestep another important ingredient for success: early press screenings. 

Giving critics early access to a movie actually helps spread the word to new potential viewers, and a lack of press screenings is often perceived as a bad sign. Critics didn't get an early peak at "Trap," so everyone started sharing their takes about the movie on the same day. Early impressions might have driven people to see "Trap" over its opening weekend, and that could have made a difference in the final numbers.

When the pre-release hype machine fails to do its job, movies need to rely on word of mouth to succeed. There's not much that filmmakers can do to affect how people talk about their movie. Sometimes a massive cultural event like "Barbenheimer" takes on a life of its own, skyrocketing to success for reasons that no one will ever fully understand. In lieu of that, reviews tend to be the main way that word spreads about a movie, and on that front "Trap" is struggling.

On Rotten Tomatoes, "Trap" currently has a 52% rating among critics. Review scores like that aren't going to drive huge crowds to the theaters, and even people who take critical responses with a grain of salt might be put off by the audience scores. According to viewers, "Trap" is a good movie overall, but with only a 64% score, it's still not anything to write home about (it also earned just a C+ on CinemaScore, an important industry tracker for audience reaction).

M. Night Shyamalan's uneven reputation actually made word of mouth even more important for "Trap." Some people might have been waiting to hear if this was a complete return to form like "The Sixth Sense" or another forgettable flick like "Lady in the Water." When those people took a look at the Friday reviews, they might have decided to head to "Deadpool and Wolverine" over the weekend instead of giving "Trap" a chance.

Directors, trailers, and reviews obviously aren't the only things responsible for getting audiences into theaters to see a movie. Plenty of films have managed to coast by on their star power alone, and sometimes the only thing a movie needs to succeed is the right actor in a lead role. M. Night Shyamalan made an interesting pick for "Trap," casting Josh Hartnett as the serial killer at the heart of the story.

The early 2000s were a prime era for Hartnett, and if you were a movie fan during that decade, then you probably saw so much of Hartnett that you got a little sick of him. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Hartnett disappeared from Hollywood, and for the past decade or so he's only made occasional appearances on the big and small screens. After his acclaimed appearance in 2023's "Oppenheimer," Harnett has continued his return in "Trap," but it's been so long since he was at the center of people's attention that he's not able to carry "Trap" by himself. Hartnett's performance in the movie is excellent — it might even be the best thing about "Trap" — but his name just isn't recognizable enough these days to inspire legions of fans to show up on opening weekend.

The concert that acts as a setting for the majority of "Trap" might actually be one of the movie's biggest problems. Lady Raven, the star who sings and dances throughout the movie, is played by M. Night Shyamalan's daughter Saleka, and she also wrote all of Lady Raven's songs herself. To hear Shyamalan tell it, the concert was one of the most important parts of the movie to him. "The concert, the thing that's happening in the background, was so important to me, and so I put so much love in it," the director told ScreenRant, adding, "We made a real concert." The effort that Shyamalan put into filming the show is obvious to an almost distracting degree.

The first act of the movie is almost overwhelmed by all the attention given to the Lady Raven concert. As a reviewer at Leisure Byte noted, "'Trap' features too many moments of Lady Raven's performances and songs that dilute the tension thoroughly. At one point I was convinced that we were watching a concert film, with a B-plot concerning a serial killer." The concert is emblematic of the movie's overall struggle with tone. "Trap" never quite manages to fill you with the dread and anticipation that a thriller needs to work, and the concert is a big part of that. If the movie were a more focused experience, it might have fared better with critics and inspired more traffic at the box office.

Endings were one of M. Night Shyamalan's strong suits when he made his filmmaking debut over 30 years ago. "The Sixth Sense" cemented his reputation for pulling off incredible third act twists, and even though he's never quite reached those heights again, Shyamalan usually makes the last few moments of his movies the best part of the experience. That's what makes the ending of "Trap" so underwhelming.

Unlike past Shyamalan films, there's no final twist here to make you reevaluate everything that you've seen. In fact, the ending here works in an almost opposite fashion to the way that so many other Shyamalan endings do. By the time the credits roll on "Trap," you're less likely to be thinking about the movie you've just seen and more likely to be wondering about what comes next. 

We don't know if there's going to be a "Trap" sequel, but the movie seemingly sets up more, and potentially even bigger, adventures for The Butcher to come. Unfortunately, teasing that the next movie will be even better isn't a great way to get people to linger on the current film, and that might be part of why audiences aren't flocking to the theater for "Trap."