Production has commenced on Academy Award nominated writer-director M. Night Shyamalan's (The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense) Lady in the Water, starring Paul Giamatti (Sideways), Bryce Dallas Howard (The Village) and an ensemble cast featuring Freddy Rodriguez (Six Feet Under), Jeffrey Wright (Angels in America), Bob Balaban (A Mighty Wind), Sarita Choudhury (She Hate Me), Mary Beth Hurt (The Family Man) and newcomer Cindy Cheung, for Warner Bros. Pictures. The announcement was made today by Jeff Robinov, President of Production, Warner Bros. Pictures.

In Lady in the Water, a story originally conceived by Shyamalan for his children, a modest building manager named Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamatti) rescues a mysterious young woman (Bryce Dallas Howard) from danger and discovers she is actually a narf, a character from a bedtime story who is trying to make the treacherous journey from our world back to hers. Cleveland and his fellow tenants start to realize that they are also characters in this bedtime story. As Cleveland falls deeper and deeper in love with the woman, he works together with the tenants to protect his new fragile friend from the deadly creatures that reside in this fable and are determined to prevent her from returning home.

Produced by Shyamalan and Sam Mercer (The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense), Lady in the Water will film on location in Philadelphia. The director of photography is Christopher Doyle H.K.S.C. (Hero, In the Mood for Love); the production designer is Martin Childs (Shakespeare in Love); the editor is Barbara Tulliver A.C.E. (Signs); the costume designer is Betsy Heimann (Almost Famous, Pulp Fiction) and the composer is James Newton Howard (The Village, Signs, Unbreakable, The Sixth Sense).

Thanks to 'Lange'.