M. Night Shyamalan is in thriller mode in 'Split'

After directing 11 films with a combined global take of $2.4 billion, earning two Oscar nominations, and scoring massive critical accolades, but also "winning" four Golden Raspberry awards and enduring humbling big-budget disappointments, M. Night Shyamalan has learned to unplug over an opening weekend.

The director of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable plans to spend this one like his last, in 2015, when his modestly budgeted horror film The Visit opened strong with $25.4 million, on its way to $98.4 million worldwide: Checking his phone for messages and weekend numbers once on Saturday, once on Sunday, and doing his best to preserve his sanity.

"That's the way to be healthy," he told the Times ahead of Friday's release of the twisty thriller Split, his 12th feature film, which has been stealthily collecting praise in sneak screenings across the globe. "Because if you give credence to these moments, then you have to give credence to the other moments, and those will inevitably come in your career where they hate you," he said, laughing.

"Opening weekend is not something that I can control, even if it goes my way," he added, matter of factly. "So I don't put any energy into that."

Split, written and directed by Shyamalan (who also produced and shot the film in Philadelphia, where all of his original films are set), stars James McAvoy in a tour de force turn as Kevin, a man who kidnaps three teenage girls (led by Anya Taylor-Joy, joined by Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula) and imprisons them in a labyrinthine underground bunker.

As the terrified teens discover, Kevin's not alone. Afflicted with dissociative identity disorder, he shares his body with 22 other personalities who each want to be heard - including a trio of volatile "alters" whose scheming threatens to unleash an even more powerful, bloodthirsty entity known as the Beast.

Or, as co-star Taylor-Joy quipped: "Fifty Shades of James."

"One of the first things he ever told me was that [Kevin] was his favorite character that he'd ever written," the actress said, recalling her first meeting with Shyamalan. "It was like, 'No pressure!' But Night has created this world, and he knows exactly what's going on within it, and because of that, you have the freedom to play."

At sneak screenings, Shyamalan has found Split audiences embracing his return to a genre that made him a household name in the late 1990s and early 2000s. More impressive in the age of the internet spoiler, they've also kept the twisty plot turns under wraps.

Shyamalan, 46, dreamed up Kevin Wendell Crumb more than a decade ago. He'd originally written his villain into an entirely different script before plucking him out to save for a then-unknown cinematic fate.

The eventual genesis of Split coincided with Shyamalan's own career crossroads.

A few years ago, after a decade of making studio movies that disappointed critically, commercially, or both (Lady in the Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender, After Earth), Shyamalan was forced to take stock of what was working and what wasn't.

"I believe everything works out when you're putting your energy into the right place. In the wrong place, the universe slaps you," he said. "I think, in a literal way, audiences can tell if I'm in a good place, if I'm in a bad place, if I'm in a lost place. You can just tell. You can feel it.

"I can't out-CGI people. I can't out-action people. I can't out-spectacle people. That's not how I think. What I can offer moviegoers in theaters is something unique, something singular. That's my weapon."

Caught between the studio machine and his more auteurist leanings, Shyamalan took a cue from micro-budget horror maven Jason Blum, producer of the hit Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and The Purge franchises.

"I reached out to him years before The Visit and tried to talk him into low-budget filmmaking," said Blum, who follows a model of producing genre films cheaply and independently with studio distribution partners, with often lucrative results.

"I went to his house in Philadelphia and we had lunch and talked about it, and he looked at me a little puzzled, then sent me on my way," Blum said "I didn't hear from him until there was a rough cut of The Visit. He said, 'I heard what you said - and I just did it myself. I made a low-budget movie.' "

Blum's Blumhouse Productions signed on to the $5 million film as producers, and The Visit - about two children sent to their grandparents' house who start to suspect something's not quite right with Grandma - put Shyamalan back in, as he called it, a good place.

Shyamalan brought Blum back to produce Split, made for under $10 million and being distributed by Universal. Once again, he worked the way he wanted, slotting valuable time for reshoots into the end of his production schedule, thus allowing himself a more malleable creative process.

"This is a format that allows me to really listen to myself and go whichever way the instinct tells me to go," he said. "It's freeing. I have an idea, I go shoot it."

For Shyamalan, who's already working up ideas for a Split sequel, the film's themes of survivorhood, strength, and adaptability echo the turns he's taken to get to a place of reenergized creative autonomy.

"You have to go through something in order to come out on the other side with the things that you need," he said. "There's no other way to do it than by going through the fire."