Praying with Anger was a fine debut film. And Wide Awake was decent, much better than Lady in the Water. Regardless of whether you or anyone else you know saw them, they exist.

Nobody talks about them because once he did Sixth Sense, people only wanted to talk about twist endings.

That, and because people lazily repeat that Sixth Sense was his first film. Whether people talk about them or not, Sixth Sense was not his first film. Perpetuating that falsehood only contributed, initially, to this wunderkind mythology that people had built up around him, and now only feeds the hate because he'll never again achieve the level of Sixth Sense.

I've always remained a fan of his, even though I really, really hated The Village and Lady in the Water and was mildly disappointed with Signs, because I knew based on his earliest work that he was capable of doing a lot more than just twist endings and overblown hype. People who discount his earliest work are more likely to think he was just a one-trick pony who is deserving of "downward trajectory" discussion threads.

RED
http://arrena.blogspot.com