The Lady in the Van "The Lady in the Van" was greenlit on 3 June 2014, with TriStar Productions and BBC Films working together to make the film adaptation of Alan Bennett's West End hit. TriStar won the film rights to handle worldwide distribution, while the BBC was the first to show the film on television in the UK. The involvement of Maggie Smith and Nicholas Hytner was announced simultaneously with the film, but they were attached to the project as early as 9 May (coincidentally Bennett's 80th birthday). Both of them had collaborated with Bennett in the past; Hytner on "The Madness of King
Lady in the Water Michael Medved gave "Lady in the Water" one-and-a-half stars (out of four) calling it, "…a full-out, flamboyant cinematic disaster, a work of nearly unparalleled arrogance and vapidity", adding, "…"Lady in the Water" is all wet…" Also panned was the fact that the film was based on a bedtime story Shyamalan told to his children; Pete Vonder Haar of "Film Threat" commented: "If Shyamalan is going to use his kids as a focus group for future projects, maybe he should start making movies for Nickelodeon already and stop wasting our time." Coincidentally, Shyamalan went on to direct a film adaptation of