The Night Chronicles has been formed by M. Night Shyamalan and Media Rights Capital, which will be a financing / production partnership that plans on generating one thriller per year for three years.

In a move that most people will find comforting after the reaction to his latest film, The Happening, Shyamalan will not direct the films, but act as producer. This marks the first time he will produce a movie that he didn’t helm and write. Shyamalan will pick the writers and directors after he has created the stories and ideas for the project. MRC will be financing and setting the films up with distribution. Ashwin Rajan has been hired by MRC to oversee development of the film projects. He is a veteran UTA agent and the cousin of Shyamalan.

Shyamalan has stated:

“Filmmakers have always been my inspiration. Working with the next wave of innovative filmmakers will teach me many things that I can bring to my own writing/directing and give my stories the opportunity to be brought to the screen in a stunning way.”

The ownership of the copyrights and artistic control will be retained by Shyamalan and MRC. New MRC prexy Tory Metzger believes that Shyamalan will be very involved in the running of The Night Chronicles. He will also have a copyright ownership stake.

Metzger had this to say about the Shyamalan and the partnership:

“These films will be based on ideas in keeping with what has made Night so successful, and has made him unique to his time.”

The MRC was attracted to the director because of his record of generating more movie ideas than he can make, since he writes, directs, produces and often acts in the films he works on. The other reason they liked the idea of working with him is because he has a good record of keeping his films on budget.

Shyamalan is directing a live-action version of Nickelodeon’s The Last Airbender next. Paramount has scheduled the film to be released on July 2nd, 2010.

Source: The Deadbolt