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"Sometimes I see dead" is the arch-repeated quote that says Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) to Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), the two protagonists of The Sixth Sense , the film that made the director M. Night Shymalan famous and that This August marks 20 years of its premiere .

It was the first horror film by the still unknown director Shyamalan, who had worked as a screenwriter in the children's film Stuart Little , and who had directed a couple of projects: Praying with anger (1992) and Wide awake (1998). With the sixth sense, he set precedents in the thriller and made his way into this genre by introducing in his films the surprise factor and intrigue , characteristics that he would replicate in later films such as El Protecado (2000) and El Bosque (2004).

The director has commented on his Twitter account that the sixth sense was released 20 years ago precisely on his birthday. "We went to the movies and watched nervously. Every time someone bought a ticket to see it, my heart was racing . Thanks to everyone who has since bought a ticket to see one of my films," Shymalan wrote.

The realization of this film that was debated between suspense, drama and a ghost story was achieved by a series of "lucky" events . David Vogel, the president in turn of Disney in the late 90s bought the script of The sixth sense for 2.5 million dollars without consulting with his superiors, which caused his dismissal. Still, the production of the film went on.

A couple of years before the movie was released, Bruce Willis was scheduled to participate in another Disney movie, the unfortunate Broadway Brawler , which the actor starred in and produced. This film that never ended represented a loss of more than $ 17 million for Disney, which decided not to resume the recordings. Willis indebted, signed with the studio a contract of three films : Armageddon (1998), The sixth sense and The Kid (2000). To pay off your debts, the agreement was that part of your salary would go directly to Disney accounts. That way, Willis charged for his role as Malcolm Crowe 10 million dollars.

Thus, in August 1999, the sixth sense was released in American movie theaters (in Spain it was necessary to wait until January 2000) and it was an instant success. In fact, it became the second highest grossing film of that year . The film overflowed the new producer Spyglass Entertainment, created especially for the occasion: The sixth sense was his first project.

So good were the results that the 40 million dollars invested in filming multiplied to almost 673 million dollars in revenue , according to data from the specialized website Box Office Mojo . In Spain raised more than 26 million euros that left almost seven million viewers at the box office.

In addition, he took the best reviews and nominations to the most important awards ceremonies. He added six Oscar nominations , including best film, best director, best original screenplay and best supporting actor (Osment); two nominations for the Golden Globes , best supporting actor and best screenplay; four to the Bafta awards and one more to the US Actors Guild. Of all of them he did not get a single award.

Two decades later it continues adding spectators thanks to the digital platforms and it has ended up turning into a cult film.

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