Movies - TV
Kevin Bacon Blames The Sixth Sense For Tanking Stir Of Echoes' Release
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
David Koepp's film "Stir of Echoes" debuted in September 1999, just four weeks after M. Night Shyamalan's enormous horror hit, "The Sixth Sense," premiered. In a 2017 retrospective with Entertainment Weekly, both Koepp and star Kevin Bacon openly declared that "The Sixth Sense" directly harmed their film's potential success.
Shooting had already concluded on "Echoes" when Koepp read Shyamalan's script, which also featured a protagonist who can see ghosts. With the release dates already set, Koepp pleaded with producer-distributor Artisan to shift the schedule, but the studio refused, claiming that Shyamalan's film was nothing to worry about.
In the end, Shyamalan's film grossed $672 million while "Stir of Echoes" went barely noticed, making only $23 million on a $12 million budget. Bacon stated that Shyamalan's film would have been a hit regardless of its release date; however, "Echoes" could’ve done a lot better had the truly haunting "Sixth Sense" stayed out of its way.
Bacon said: "We weren't 'The Sixth Sense,' and there was the option to come out before; 'Stir of Echoes' was well received and testing very high, and well reviewed, as far as I remember. 'The Sixth Sense' was a phenomenon, so every step of the way we were compared to them, and it completely f***ed the possibility of the movie being seen."