Cancun, Cozumel, Yucatan Peninsula '98

Book excerpt: "M. Night Shyamalan seemed to have it all. He'd directed a string of hit movies for Disney, beginning with the supernatural thriller The Sixth Sense, which had brought in over two billion dollars around the world. He had a beautiful wife, a loving family, a house with its own theater - the whole thing. People were calling him "the next Spielberg." Then he wrote a screenplay called Lady in the Water." "It was a fairy tale, really, an adaptation of a bedtime story he had invented for his young daughters. But when the bosses at Disney read the script, they told him they "didn't get it." Night felt he knew what they were really thinking: This guy has lost his mind. He boldly decided to leave the safety of his longtime filmmaking home and find new partners who would understand his odd story and idiosyncratic self. Night needed people who would help him make the most daring, ambitious, and deeply personal picture of his life." "He had panic attacks all along - while writing, while casting, while directing. For his hero, he didn't want a proven box-office star like Tom Hanks or Tom Cruise, but the brilliant but lesser-known Paul Giamatti. He wanted Lady filmed in a lush style by a wild man cinematographer that no director had ever tamed. And he wanted the movie to open on seven thousand screens across the world at the height of the summer popcorn season." "In The Man Who Heard Voices, Michael Bamberger takes you deep into Night's world during the creation of Lady in the Water. Based on nearly two years of exclusive, intimate reporting, Bamberger's book takes the cover off the secretive director's inspiring methods: handpicking a cast and crew he can mold into a temporary family; weighing on-the-set choices that will define his movie forever; and leading, even when he's lost. Most important, Bamberger penetrates the mind and artistic vision of a creative genius working at the peak of his powers, driven to bring his vision to the screen by the voices of creation - and self-doubt - that forever haunt him."--BOOK JACKET.