Unbreakable comic-book horror

My character in Unbreakable is called Elijah. I can't say much about him because that would spoil the fun - but he thinks he's a mistake, or some kind of freak and cannot figure out why he is alive.

He is intricate and fascinating, quirky and intelligent, strong and fragile - that's how he was conceived by M. Night Shyamalan, the film's writer/director.

Like Elijah, I've read comic books all my life and I'm an only child. My mum let me buy comics, but for every five I bought I had to read a classic (that was the rule - Mum didn't make deals, she gave edicts). I still sign myself in, I guess three times a month, at a comic store in LA. I like anti-heroes. Superman, Spiderman - those guys are OK, but I read more reality-based things where the guys carry guns, they aren't impervious to bullets and they can't fly.

You don't have to be into comics to like Unbreakable, but you are more likely to get it if you accept comic-book conventions. It will be interesting to see how the film performs. Night's last movie, The Sixth Sense, was a phenomenal hit - but that could backfire on this project, like when Quentin Tarantino did Jackie Brown and the audience was disappointed that it wasn't Pulp Fiction 2. Certainly some critics in America are pissed off that they didn't get to see Sixth Sense 2.

Coming to this film, Night was a writer/director with a pedigree - a $600 million gross - so he could do what he liked. Who knows, this may bring him back to earth and next time he wants to do a film, they might say, "We want to see a re-write". One thing he has going for him is he's not in the studio system, he's a gunslinger. He did this with Disney but now they are in a bidding war with everybody else to get the next one.