Poor M. Night Shyamalan.

The Last Airbender director started off his filmmaking career with the kind of success that can be hard to top. When The Sixth Sense debuted in 1999, it shocked and delighted crowds, made almost $700 million at the box office and was nominated at the Oscars for Best Picture.

But ever since, Shyamalan has struggled to reconnect with audiences and critics, as films such as Signs, The Village and The Happening have drawn as many jeers as cheers.

Faced with staggeringly bad reviews for Airbender, Shyamalan has found himself on the defensive, lashing out at critics and suggesting that he’s being unfairly picked on by the critical elite.

Now the director claims to have figured out why critics give him such a hard time. According to an interview Shyamalan gave to Britain’s Total Film magazine, it’s because he suffers from the same fate as retired basketball legend Michael Jordan.

“Look, I loved Michael Jordan, right?” Shyamalan says. “He was my favourite basketball player. When I used to watch him at Madison Square Garden there would be 25,000 people booing every time that he touched the ball, screaming abuse at him. And it was because the entire stadium was there to see him be spectacular. They were like, ‘I don’t want you to disappoint me or hurt me.’”

Shyamalan says the public’s reaction to him is the same. “I’m no Michael Jordan but maybe I get a little of that… Reviews of my movies often spend a lot of the time talking about me, not the movie!”

Despite the harsh criticism, The Last Airbender has grossed over $150 million at the global box office.

(Photo by PR Photos)

Story provided by the Dish Information Corporation